OptimoRoute Helps Eldum rétt Be the Efficient, Dynamic and Responsive Company Its Customers Need

FOOD DELIVERY, EUROPE

Eldum rétt is a meal kit delivery company in Iceland. The business deployed OptimoRoute’s delivery route optimization software to address challenges with route planning and delivery scheduling due to the ​rapidly increasing demand for their product.

OptimoRoute enabled Eldum rétt to plan 1000+ deliveries with various constraints in minutes. Previously impossible replanning due to unexpected changes is now possible and has spiked their customer satisfaction and retention. Additionally, integrated email notifications for customers with Uber-like live tracking of their order has once again thrilled their customers.

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About Eldum rétt

This pioneering meal kit delivery company has been around since 2014 when Kristófer Leifsson founded it with his brother-in-law. From the very beginning, the founders recognized that great product combined with excellent customer service would be essential for building a good reputation – to overcome the resistance to online grocery shopping which had been very foreign to Iceland.

Their customer base has grown steadily, and 5 years later Eldum rétt delivers to upwards of 1,000 customers per week. There’s a choice of seven meal kit products that customers order online and have delivered to their door.

2014

Since

1000

Customers per week

2x

Annual business growth

Planning and Communication Soon Became Challenges That Needed to Be Addressed

At first, the founders did the planning by hand, just by dividing delivery locations according to their postcodes and using GPS for delivery drivers – a solution that was too manual, and very time-consuming. When the number of orders grew to over 80, the team realized route optimization software was the answer. Otherwise, manual routing would have been a full-time and badly performed job! But, their first software solution didn’t meet their expectations.

They also wanted an efficient way of notifying their customers of delivery arrival times, to reduce the number of repeat delivery attempts which were difficult to replan, and could have been minimized.

No Other Route Planning Software Can Handle a Huge Order Volume This Efficiently

Now, Eldum rétt has around 1,000 orders per week. Before coming across OptimoRoute, the solutions that Leifsson had seen were very expensive and tailored to the typical delivery company – “but that’s not what we do – 90% of our deliveries are done on only one day of the week,” Leifsson explains. And, finding a tool that could divide so many orders across a large number of drivers also proved difficult.

After receiving orders for the following week, they can efficiently plan the initial routes a few days in advance in OptimoRoute. However, creating routes and schedules ahead of time does not mean the routes and schedules are static and difficult to change. There are always customer changes, so they simply make adjustments later.

Planning for a regular week takes less than one hour, and for Leifsson this is not a long time at all. OptimoRoute lets them handle scheduling factors that need to be accounted for – like fluctuations in orders and staff availability – without huge a huge amount of additional planning time.

We Need to Be Flexible, Our Customer Service Needs to Be Super Responsive – OptimoRoute Makes It Possible

Leifsson relies on another OptimoRoute planning feature, Service Areas, for quick planning and replanning, and for the flexibility to deal with live problems.

Each driver’s route is within one fixed geographical area, so when a driver needs to return to an address it is not a strain on time and other resources. Or, if a driver is running behind schedule, other drivers from nearby Service Areas can easily be assigned his jobs. The ability to respond to problems this way is essential for Eldum rétt – because it minimizes disruptions to their customer service.

Listen to customers, acknowledge problems and just work on solving them – that’s the Eldum rétt approach to customer service. Using OptimoRoute for routing and replanning lets them be dynamic and responsive, rapidly fixing problems as they arise.

Giving Customers Live Uber-Like Arrival Times Is a Game Changer

Eldum rétt started using OptimoRoute’s Realtime Order Tracking feature as soon as it became available. Leifsson recognized that giving customers live arrival times and the ability to visually track their delivery matches the Eldum rétt approach of being committed to superior customer service. Reducing the amount of missed deliveries was also vital – given that they’re dealing with fresh food.

The actual sending of Realtime Order Tracking emails is integrated within the planning process, and it involves minimal extra work: email addresses are listed when importing orders, and the Realtime Order Tracking emails are sent out at the same stage of the optimization process as sending routes to drivers.

Customers love knowing when to expect their delivery. Having live arrival times at their fingertips means that customers are much more likely to be home and receive their delivery – to store the food properly and maintain freshness and product quality.