ByBox brings glad tidings to businesses wishing for a hassle free Christmas

Christmas is a critical time for many companies – their performance during seasonal peak can spell the difference between a healthy profit and a balance sheet that would dampen anyone’s prospects of enjoying a Happy New Year.

And whether businesses are in the retail or service sector they all share a common goal – to deliver the highest levels of customer service during the festive period to ensure they maintain a competitive edge.

"Delivery is often taken for granted or overlooked, but it can be critical for a business," said Mark Garritt, Managing Director of ByBox, the front-runner in field service solutions.

"Timely delivery is essential for the smooth running of many aspects of a business and ByBox is ideally placed to offer a viable solution which ensures downtime is kept to a minimum.

"For example if an electronic till breaks down, it is essential that it is fixed quickly. This is particularly important during the Christmas rush, so it requires an engineer with the right spare part at the right time to fix it. And working weekends and Bank Holidays is sometimes essential during this period.

"It’s no use if the part doesn’t arrive because the carrier cannot cope with bad winter weather or is swamped by the huge surge in deliveries during the festive season.

"Christmas shoppers faced with extra long queues building up because tills are not working will simply go elsewhere – and no retailer wants to lose customers, especially at this time of year.

"Equally, if a computer system goes down it can have a huge impact on the productivity of a business – and the longer the wait for a repair, the greater the effect.

"Smart operators know they have to choose delivery providers wisely if they want to have a successful Christmas."

ByBox offers a secure, reliable and robust alternative to traditional delivery by delivering in-night, pre-8am to a national network of secure lockers with a first-time success rate of 99.77%.

Engineers can order parts as late as 9pm at night for arrival the next day, pre 8am, and are alerted by text message when a parcel has arrived. Parts are ready for collection before the start of an engineer’s day, maximising efficiency and minimizing the downtime of machinery.

If a customer has a simple swap out or fix, ByBox can send one of its Tech Couriers to do the job, with the choice of a four-hour, same day and next day response. The service provides outsourced low-cost engineering resource which is a real alternative to using an expensive in-house field workforce.

Both facilities are available 365 days a year, including Christmas Day. In addition, if a part is urgently required out of hours, ByBox operates a network of Forward Stock Locations (FSL) which are open around the clock where it looks after fast moving and urgent stock.

The FSL network is an integrated storage, rapid pick and pack and distribution service with locations around the UK and Europe, including hard-to-reach areas such as the UK highlands and islands. The FSLs offer full control and management of all stock returns, replenishments and dispatches and can provide emergency stock holding to support 4 hour SLAs and out-of-hours coverage.

Combined with an unrivalled network of more than 18,000 lockers at 1,500 locations in the UK, ByBox provides unmatched coverage. Furthermore, the whole system is underpinned by ByBox’ unique software platform Thinventory™ that gives complete end-to-end visibility of the supply chain.

Thinventory™ is ByBox’ pride and glory and was developed by its own team of Software Developers. With Thinventory™, ByBox move the data, not the part. Many companies can show customers that their part has been delivered, but the Thinventory™ platform is different. All movements can be traced real-time over the web to see what stage of the supply chain a customers’ part is at. As a result, customers spend less money on sameday transport and unnecessary stock holding.

At their most profitable time of year businesses cannot afford to have breakdowns and delays in repairing machinery so it is vital that spare parts get to field engineers on time – especially at weekends and bank holidays. ByBox’ customers know their engineers will always start the day with the right equipment for the jobs ahead – whatever the weather. For the last couple of years companies have been left praying for a miracle when the snow hit, but ByBox customers have been able to carry on business as usual.

ByBox has revolutionised the field services sector with its innovative delivery model and also has a consumer solution that is changing the face of home delivery. The service allows consumers to collect their internet orders at a locker if they are not in to receive deliveries at home or at work; ensuring they never miss a delivery. The ByBox service can also plug into retailers directly and be offered to consumers at checkout.

The company, founded in 2000, now has a £57 million turnover and has been awarded a number of prestigious accolades, including being ranked in the Sunday Times International Track 200 twice and winning the Motor Transport Best Use of Technology award for its Thinventory™ platform.