Pillow Logistics Leverages Dispatch Science Transparency To Delight Customers and Save Money
About Pillow Logistics
“Pillow Logistics was founded in 1988 after my father, George E. Pillow, had a conversation with a couple of healthcare executives. He was surprised to learn how their struggles with internal courier services were hitting their bottom lines. They complained that there was a real void in the market for reliable, outsourced expedited courier services. This made a great impression on him and he realized he could offer these people a solution. Soon he was meeting with other companies and local governments regarding outsourcing expedited courier services, and he found their concerns overlapped in many ways. Logistics was a business unto itself and companies and government services could benefit from a streamlined approach that would provide efficiency and cost advantages. People needed reliable services that would offer individualized care and the highest standards of customer service. And that’s how Pillow Logistics was born.” – Eddie Pillow, President |  |
Challenges
Pillow logistics’ business depended on a 20-year-old client-server application. It was complex and difficult to use, had an obsolete user interface, and simply lacked the modern capabilities expected by customers and staff given the ubiquity of smartphones, the explosion of ecommerce and the rise of the gig economy. In short, the software was no longer meeting the company’s basic needs. Another challenge was the significant time and effort required to extract any kind of real-time data and provide it to internal users and clients when needed. This lack of data transparency hindered operations, customer service, and frustrated many customers. Finally, dispatchers lacked the tools to optimize routes, balance workloads, and ensure vehicle weight and capacity constraints were met. By extension, it was impossible to reliably track drivers are communicate ETA’s to clients. |
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Solution
In 2020 Pillow selected Delivery Technology expert Dispatch Science as a partner and implemented their solution which easily automated their operations and integrated with their existing clients, quickly giving them better transparency on every step of the delivery process.
Mobility
 | With no local software to install, Dispatch Science’s secure and online system made it easier for the Pillow team to adapt to COVID-19 work-from-home measures and dispatch from anywhere to any driver. There was no need to implement cumbersome VPN’s or complex server hosting structures. |
Reporting
 | The live information gathered by Dispatch Science gives Pillow a new level of insight and accountability. Real-time tracking lets the team identify issues and quickly make informed decisions; they also track how drivers are complying with the standards promised in their Service Level Agreements (SLAs). |
Visibility
 | The Dispatch Science Customer Web Portal lets Pillow’s customers track their deliveries from start to finish. Each client precisely gets the SMS or email details they want and none they don’t thanks to an easy-to-use notification designer that elegantly wraps all communications in Pillow’s look and feel. Other shippers love Pillow’s use of their logo and brand marks, since it gives consignees a seamless transaction experience. The ability to offer this accurate delivery information helps streamline customer service case management, resulting in even greater cost savings for Pillow. |
Dispatch
 | The sophisticated Dispatch Science dispatch boards dramatically increase the Pillow team’s productivity. Now, on-demand, routed, and scheduled orders can be managed from a single interface. Meanwhile, the automated optimizer constantly proposes the best stop sequences. By utilizing the route optimization feature, the Pillow team can visually manage all their distribution routes. It’s now easy to identify at-risk routes, quickly drag-and-drop stops between routes, and one-click re-optimize and re-balance. |
| “Dispatch Science offered an end-to-end solution that easily integrated with our existing systems, resulting in a near-instant and radar-sharp visibility on our operations, coupled with extremely powerful reporting capabilities.” Alan Distel ,VP Operations |
Results
Thanks to its partnership with Dispatch Science, Pillow Logistics has realized significant improvements across the board:
- Cut 2 full routes thanks to automation and optimization, resulting in $100K+ annual cost savings
- Dramatic reduction in integrations time and efforts: One customer integration took just 2 hours thanks to the modern API instead of what previously took days or weeks to achieve
- Thanks to Dispatch Science’s instant scalability, the business has successfully grown by over 80% in a matter of months without any service interruption
- The Game-changing API and WebHooks along with immediate access to real-time information via OData enables Pillow to take full control of the entire delivery experience, from order to cash.
The Future
With Dispatch Science, Pillow has found a technology and partner with whom they can scale and future-proof their business. This future means servicing more clients, recruiting & retaining more drivers, and readiness to tackle new markets and new opportunities in 2022 and beyond.
“The increased visibility provided by Dispatch Science has benefited our customers. We are reaping the fruits with big gains in customer loyalty, and exciting new business growth opportunities.” Eddie Pillow, President |
