Tracking Customer Parcels

[OhSoCherished]

Hi All,

Just a quickie...

As we are growing we are sending out more and more orders and therefore more people calling or emailing with 'Where's my order'. We send all products out via Royal Mail Signed For but as you all know some items just don't reach their destination or the customers don't leave it long enough for the order to arrive.

We cannot type in every single RM tracking number to email to every single customer with their automatic order dispatch email as we would be there all week. My sales person is spending so, so many hours tracking orders when more often than not they are waiting to be collected at the customers sorting office.

My question is...how do you deal with such queries? Is there a more easier way of getting tracking numbers over to customers, so they can do it themselves??

I'm trying to refine our systems and I think if we could crack this I would make Diane a happy lady!

Any feedback would be just super!
I hope it all made sense.

Sarah

[KidsBeeHappy]

What kind of volume of parcels are you dealing with a day?

[OhSoCherished]

Hi Boxby,

Now I don't like talking figures on a forum, but it's just over 100 orders a day but growing quickly!!

Sarah

[KidsBeeHappy]

Sarah,

I'll PM you. We work with a sytem that allows you to track everything on one system, regardless of who the individual parcel carrier is, and what service it's going on. It can also be set up to email/text your customers tracking numbers and updates etc.

Kind regards
Sandra

[cycloneuk]

I now scan all the Royal Mail barcodes into my software which then adds the tracking code to the invoice and dispatch email, dosn't take long at all. I used to hate manually typing them in and sometimes made mistakes with the numbers.

[OhSoCherished]

Hi cycloneuk,

If you don't mind me asking what software do you use? :D
This is the type of thing I am after!

S

[cycloneuk]

Hi cycloneuk,

If you don't mind me asking what software do you use? :D
This is the type of thing I am after!

S

I'm using X-Cart with a number of mods and tweaks, i would think that you would be able to get a programmer to do what you want without to much cost.

X-Cart already includes a field for a tracking number so only a few tweaks were needed, the hardest part was getting the barcode scanner to work properly.

[TotallySport]

Hi

Royal Mail have there own software to do this, you can build it into your computer system and make it seemless, it will print your lables with or without barcodes etc, and then log it onto the OBA system at the same time.

Sorry cannot remeber what it's called but if you need to know let me know and I will look it up, we are in the process of setting it up.

[paretowasright]

Guys I am assuming this is only relevant for Royal Mail 'tracked' service or am I missing something here?
I looked into it recently but the minimum was about 800 parcels a month.

[TotallySport]

Guys I am assuming this is only relevant for Royal Mail 'tracked' service or am I missing something here?
I looked into it recently but the minimum was about 800 parcels a month.I would suggest that the OP is talking about Recorded Delivery not Track and Trace, the Track and Trace you have to use the software to get the lables, but it can be used on all of the Royal Mail Services, and you don't need to use track and trace.

[paretowasright]

OK thanks for that I did not even realise you could do recorded without taking it to the Post office so you learn something new every day!

[TotallySport]

OK thanks for that I did not even realise you could do recorded without taking it to the Post office so you learn something new every day!Hi

If you look up packet post or/and PPI you can use all Royal Mail services without going to the post office, you can even get it collected, but you need to spend over 5k a year to qualify for the service.