CourierPost Ticket-It
Sector: Couriers and Logistics
Business Challenge & Background
CourierPost is part of Express Couriers Limited, a joint venture company owned by DHL and New Zealand Post which is one of the largest players in the competitive domestic courier and logistics industry.
High volume customers of CourierPost require the ability to print their own courier labels, rather than hand writing them, and putting them on their packages before being picked up by the courier . This is both a time saving mechanism for the customer, as well as ensuring that CourierPost has all the correct information required to deliver the package successful.
What We Did
Marker worked with CourierPost's IT team and systems integration partners to design and build Ticket-it. From address management to parcel tracking; Ticket-it allows CourierPost customers to:
- Upload customer addresses
- Print labels individually, or in a batch
- Access Track & Trace data on their packages and export this to Excel
- Powerful reporting
Technologies implemented include:
- ASP.NET, .NET 2.0, C#, VB.NET, SQL Server 2005
- AJAX.NET to aid in the easy-to-use user interface
- SOAP Web Services / WSE
- Integration with ERP via BizTalk
- Advanced Print from Browser
A great deal of time at the beginning of the project was spent on the information architecture (IA) and user interface (UI) design.
Marker worked with Optimal Usability to do an expert review of the application at a prototype stage, to validate the decisions made and ensure that the user experience would be the best possible.
Outcomes
Reduced Desktop Support
This system replaced a legacy desktop application and allowed CourierPost to make this available on a ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) model, substantially reducing their support and implementation costs associated with each customer.
Competitive Advantage
This model also means that CourierPost can continually enhance and improve the offering without complex deployment to each customer. Ticket-it offers access to many new features and gave CourierPost a competitive point of difference in the market.