Choosing a Delivery Management System for Your Business

Featuring Insights from WeWork's Former Global Head of Business Operations, Max Handler

During Max Handler's eight-year tenure at WeWork, the company grew from 3 locations to over 800. When he started, they didn't have a dedicated system for dealing with their members’ or employees' mail and packages. In fact, their first location didn't even have a mailroom! It pretty quickly became evident that they needed a comprehensive, modern mailroom management system. We asked Max to share a little bit of advice for companies in a similar place on choosing the system that is best for your needs.

WeWork researched many systems before landing on PackageX Scan & Track. They were able to test the leading contenders side by side empirically. A lot went into the decision, but the following five features really tipped the scales in favor of PackageX and are important considerations for anyone who is shopping for a mailroom management system.

Superior OCR Technology

At the time that WeWork piloted PackageX - they were using a red light, barcode-scanner based system, and they knew it's pitfalls. Barcode based systems are inherently unreliable and prone to error. Even the best scanners on the market fail and are finicky at times. Items that come into the mailroom without a barcode mess up the flow. Most importantly, since many package labels have more than one barcode (often representing two different carriers involved in the delivery), often registered as new when the staff unknowingly scanned a different barcode, leading to all sorts of mailroom mix-ups.

Knowing they wanted an OCR based system, immediately drew Max's team to PackageX because of our background as a computer vision company that specializes in OCR. PackageX had superior OCR and AI capabilities to any competitor, including the ability to read handwriting and decipher partially obscured labels.

Flexible and Scalable

As WeWork rapidly expanded its footprint around the world - the team knew they needed a system that could easily scale with them. PackageX Scan & Track stood out because it could support 57 languages (including non-latin alphabets) and its startup and onboarding process was so quick and easy.

Fully Automated

PackageX saved the average WeWork mailroom employee an hour a day compared to the barcode scanning system. Instead of spending time keying in recipient's names, mailroom employees could interact with the members and provide a higher quality experience. In some locations, with multiple employees, the significant time savings allowed them to cut costs significantly by reducing the number of employees in the mailroom at any given time and/or reducing the operating hours.

No Specialized Hardware

When speaking to their mailroom employees, Max's team discovered that most of them preferred not to have a dedicated scanning device, but preferred the freedom and flexibility of scanning from anywhere with an app.

For the operations team, it was a no brainer as regularly supplying and updating scanning devices across 800 locations had proven to be a significant output and expense. Even for a smaller company, a software-based solution lowers startup and maintenance costs significantly while providing a higher standard of service.

Data and Analytics

Scan & Track's robust data and analytics dashboard provided Max's team with the tools they needed to quantify the efficiency improvements of their new mailroom process and improve it further with better staffing that responded directly to the mailroom's busiest times. It also gave them invaluable insights that they could use when building new buildings and mailrooms from the ground up.

Choosing a mailroom management software is an important decision for your business - you can test out PackageX with confidence by signing up for a free trial. For more help from Max and our team, see the PackageX Blog.