About
Delaware Valley University, colloquially known as DelVal, is a popular non-profit university located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Delaware Valley services 2,426 students between its undergraduate and graduate programs.
Recently, package deliveries to their student population have increased by a staggering 20% per academic year. PackageX was able to work with DelVal to implement our inbound package management solution.
Problem
Delaware Valley University (DelVal) in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, needed a robust, user-friendly software solution to process packages more efficiently for their 1,924 students. Recently, package deliveries to their student population have increased by a staggering 20% per academic year, and their barcode scanning system was just too manual and slow to keep up with the volume.
Solution
PackageX was able to work with DelVal to implement our inbound package management solution and tailor app-specific customizations to suit their needs. Stu Schaeffer, the Mail Center Coordinator, has said that PackageX has decreased the time it takes them to process inbound packages by 80%, as compared to their previous software implementation.
He explains with their old software, “Student Mail Center associates and I had to key in the first letters of the last name of a recipient and, then, make multiple extra keystrokes to report where we put it and, then, notify the recipient that a package had been received. With PackageX, a photo is taken of the address label and barcode, and the software is intuitive enough to link the recipient to our on-campus database and suggest a match. 95% of the time, it gets it right, including handwritten address labels.”
However, processing inbound packages quickly was only part of the solution DelVal was looking for; they also needed to organize their mailroom in a way that would help them find packages quickly at the point of pickup. PackageX worked with Mr. Schaeffer and his team to customize the app so that when an associate scans a package, a list of locations in the mail center, including different shelves and alphabetized tubs on the floor for oversized packages, pops up in the software to easily mark the package's location with one click.
“With package deliveries increasing by 20% per academic year, Delaware Valley University needed a robust, user-friendly program to process deliveries more efficiently. I'd estimate we're able to process packages 80% faster. I'd highly recommend PackageX.”
Feedback
Delaware Valley University’s mailroom has indelibly left its mark with its students. Why is this? Within two months, mailroom communication had reached 63% of the student population. With its previous solution, this target would be hard to reach, especially within a two-month period.
After a year of PackageX’s implementation and customization of DelVal’s retrieval process, Stu Schaeffer and his team experienced a 53% reduction in package pickup time - cutting down the time packages linger in the mailroom by more than half over its previous mailroom solution.
Although faster pickup is a key result of PackageX Receive’s implementation, its benefits extend further. Now, DelVal retains more of its mailroom’s space for mail and packages without having to expand its physical storage. Additionally, the risk of losing a package and the liability that comes with it has decreased because packages have shorter shelf lives.
Mr. Schaeffer reports that his mailroom operations have never been smoother – even when the package processing volume was much less. “PackageX has sped up the process of finding packages and handing them off to students and reduced the cases of lost packages to almost zero. In the rare case that a package is misplaced (usually because an associate chooses one location on the app but places it in another location), my staff can use PackageX Receive to look up the picture of the package label and know precisely what to look for.”
Thank you to the entire DelVal team for your feedback and help in making PackageX even stronger and smarter. For help getting your mailroom up to speed, email sales@packagex.io or schedule a demo to see our software in action.
Outcomes
Problem
- Packages volume increasing by 20% YoY.
- Barcode scanning system is too slow.
- Needs a better package retrieval process.
Soultion
- PackageX’s OCR scans eliminate manual data entry.
- PackageX’s system automatically links recipients and sends notifications.
- Custom labels & locations outline where each package resides.
Outcomes
- PackageX processes packages 80% quicker.
- Notifications reached 63% of students resulting in 53% quicker pick up.
- Lost package cases were reduced to almost 0.
