With endless selection, around-the-clock hours, and the most competitive prices anywhere, people love shopping on the Internet. According to the U.S. Census, e-commerce sales hit $304.9 billion in 2014. That’s up 15.4% from 2013. As a result, the number of packages being delivered is skyrocketing. With the boom of package delivery came the need for a better system of package management in apartments, colleges, universities, and other multifamily spaces. Management personnel needed a better system to manage and log packages for their hundreds of units. Residents needed a more convenient process for package notifications and pick-ups. Fortunately, a solution emerged in 2012 with the launch of Package Concierge, makers of innovative digital package locker systems.
“With Salesforce, we’re able to track our sales cycle more effectively, and we can find data on key players in minutes.”
Founder and CEO Georgianna W. Oliver, who has extensive experience in the property management and software industries, saw an opportunity.
“Beyond worrying about security, the staff at large apartment buildings spent an average of four hours a day handling packages,” says Oliver. “For apartment owners, it is also an aesthetic issue — no one wants to see untidy package areas.”
Package Concierge’s locker systems feature a streamlined wall of multi-sized lockers and a touchscreen control center. Carriers access the system via the touchscreen, allowing them to open lockers and deliver packages securely. The moment the carrier closes the locker, recipients are notified via email or text. Recipients then use a key fob or student ID along with a PIN to retrieve their packages.
With such an innovative solution, it’s not surprising that business has been booming since the company’s launch. Along with Package Concierge’s growth, the decision to implement a CRM solution was prompted by some serious internal constraints.
“It was really messy,” says Co-Founder and President Barry Hume. “We were trying to do all our sales tracking in spreadsheets. There was no quick way for everyone to see where we stood with each individual client. With no process, things were slipping through the cracks.”
A positive past experience made the decision to implement Salesforce an easy one.
“I’d used Salesforce at other companies and loved it,” says Oliver. “We didn’t really need to look at anything else.”
Now, with Salesforce Salesforce Platform and Sales Cloud, the company’s processes are locked down.
“There’s no more messing around with spreadsheets,” says Hume. “With Sales Cloud, we’re able to track our sales cycle more effectively, and we can find data on key players in minutes. Even meeting prep time has been cut down from more than an hour to just a few minutes.”
Sales Cloud has also allowed Package Concierge to keep those conversations going — automatically — by setting up event triggers.
Continues Hume, “We have an actual process now. We’ve set up these incredibly useful workflow triggers, which automatically let us know when to follow up with customers and prospects.”
Additionally, Package Concierge has found Salesforce’s ability to automate processes to be a massive time-saver.
“Before Salesforce we had a workbook in Excel that we couldn’t automate,” says Hume. “Now with templates in Salesforce, writing proposals has been cut from 10 minutes to five. Then, we can easily track the status of each proposal. We’ve also templated and automated the sending of customer follow-up emails and touchpoints. It’s saved us countless hours.”
Because everyone is connected to the same data in Salesforce, Package Concierge has also experienced a big increase in collaboration and accountability.
“There’s so much more transparency. We can see all hands across the network and make sure customers are being handled,” says Hume. “And having dashboards and reports at our fingertips has been great. We can actually measure where we stand with customers. We live in Salesforce all day long, and it’s going to stay critical to our growth going forward.”
Package Concierge is also a big believer in the power of being social as a company, which it does through Chatter.
“Chatter is essential to our business. It’s really helped keep people motivated. There’s a lot of healthy competition,” explains Hume. “Plus, it’s a great place to share success and congratulations.”
Package Concierge is already off to a great start with locker systems now in hundreds of properties across the United States. But this is just the beginning. “Five years down the road, package lockers are absolutely going to be in every new community. And if they’re not, residents will be asking for them,” says Oliver. “With the help of Salesforce, we’re confident that the majority of these will be from Package Concierge.”
