Bishops Printers

The Challenges

Bishops employ a team of van drivers who deliver printed items to clients around the country.

These deliveries are often time sensitive and require multiple drop off points during the journey. At the time, Bishops had no automated solution in place to monitor these deliveries so regular calls were made to the drivers for updates on where they were. This process created problems for both the Customer Services and Sales teams, and was also becoming unmanageable as the client base continued to grow.

Therefore, Bishops decided to investigate solutions that could improve visibility of these drivers in real-time and support the company’s service to customers.

The Solution

Bishops Printers implemented Crystal Ball’s smartphone app solutions – MobileTrack Pro, MobileLWP and MobileGeoTag. These solutions combine to provide a comprehensive workforce management tool that fits perfectly with Bishops’ requirements.

MobileTrack Pro provides “real-time” visibility of drivers’ current locations on Crystal Ball’s detailed mapping, and the “nearest to postcode” functionality shows how far away drivers are from a delivery destination. The system also has geofences configured to send automatic notifications to Customer Services and the Sales teams when a driver enters or exits a client’s delivery address.

MobileLWP provides welfare protection for drivers who deliver to remote addresses or outside normal business hours. This is possible through panic alarms which can be activated on the handset if the driver is in any danger, and an email notification (containing the driver’s current location) is sent immediately to the office and selected mobile phones to request assistance if necessary.

Finally, MobileGeoTag was implemented as a form of “proof of delivery” using photographs and signatures captured on site. These are then geotagged by the app on the handset and the data is transmitted to the system. All three services utilised by Bishops report back on to one web-based platform.

The Outcome

Bishops now have complete visibility of their delivery drivers in real-time and a clear understanding of where their drivers’ are and the distances left to travel to the delivery addresses. This provides both the customer and Bishops’ staff with a better insight into delivery ETAs, and significantly enhances the levels of service offered to customers.

As well as monitoring deliveries, the implementation of MobileTrack Pro has also improved the team’s overall efficiency, as Nick Murphy, Operations Director explains:

“Crystal Ball is a useful workforce management tool as we can see where are drivers are at any one time and re-route them if necessary to avoid traffic diversions. It also helps us to plan their journeys better, so if there is something we need picking up while they are on the road we can find the nearest driver and ask him to take a detour. This has led to improvements in efficiency and productivity, and also provides me with peace of mind that the drivers are doing their jobs and not parked in a lay by taking an unofficial break.”

Bishops also utilise MobileTrack Pro’s alarms and alerts functionality assigned to geofenced delivery locations on the system. This has proved to be of significant benefit for their key accounts:

“We use the alarms and alerts functionality for various customers, but they are especially useful for our football club clients. The delivery of match day programmes is time critical, so we have set up all the football grounds that we deliver to with geofences. This means we know exactly when the drivers have arrived on site and then notify the relevant people at the ground. We also utilise the alarm function for when drivers arrive back at our offices. We are aware the moment they arrive back so we can therefore send them out again if there is time and if necessary.”

Bishops also use MobileTrack Pro to deal with administration of speeding fines and traffic offences more effectively. Prior to Crystal Ball, identifying the responsible driver was a difficult and time consuming process because drivers were not allocated to any specific vehicle. Now Bishops utilise Crystal Ball to ascertain who was driving what vehicle at the specific time of the offence.

Additional Comments

The recent addition of MobileGeotag also allows Bishops to issue proof of deliveries to clients using photos and signatures captured on-site. These details are contained on electronic delivery notes which can be emailed to customers the moment an item has been delivered, adding value to the services offered by Bishops and keeping staff informed of the final deliveries.

Nick Murphy, Operations Director concludes:

Crystal Ball have always listened to what we have requested, there seems to be constant development with the product, they listen to feedback and develop the solutions accordingly”