In this article, I will outline what you’ll need to fully automate Shipping in Veeqo. We will be making use of Veeqo’s well documented API to integrate a shipping carrier or courier – provided that they also have a public API we can use. We will be using Integromat to make Veeqo and a Shipping Carrier talk with each other.

Currently, Veeqo supports 24(just 23 actually) carriers and they’re directly integrated into the platform. Using any of the below carriers, you can order a shipment without leaving the Veeqo platform and Veeqo will take care of sending out requests to the Shipping Carrier you use (so long as you’ve set them up beforehand). Any other carriers not mentioned below are still usable with Veeqo and this is covered by the third option “3. Other” shown below.

(The number will be important later as they’re the ids required to send API requests to Veeqo)

Veeqo supported Shipping Carriers

12: Parcelforce
13: TNT
14: Yodel
15: APC
16: DX
17: UK Mail
18: Israel Post
19: Canada Post
23: Hermes World
24: DHL DE (Deutsche Post)

Using “Other” shipping carriers means that you will have to export the data out of Veeqo and import it into your shipping carrier’s system. This means you will have to work with CSVs (again), tidy up the data to conform with what’s expected, and fill out the data manually for missing information. Depending on the volume of orders and shipments you process each day, this could mean hours of mentally intensive, unrewarding, and exhausting work.

What if there was a way to make Veeqo and any Shipping Carrier talk to each other?

There is a way!

We’re already provided a way on the Veeqo side of things to manage orders, shipments, tags, etc outside of their User Interface thru their API. What you need to find out is if your preferred Shipping company has a public facing API – preferably a REST API.

What you’ll need

1. Veeqo API Key
2. Integromat free account (register here)
3. Your Shipping Carrier Documentation & Relevant API keys/secrets

How it works

1. Create a custom tag in Veeqo (example: “Ship this order” tag)
2. Apply the “Ship this order” tag to Veeqo orders – make sure the orders are in “Ready to Ship” stage/status
3. From Integromat, do a GET request using HTTP modules for orders in “Ready to Ship” that has the tag “Ship this”
4. Do a POST request to your preferred Shipping carrier’s API to create a shipping order with them
5. Do a POST request to Veeqo Shipments API to ‘move’ the order into “Shipped” status
6. (Optional) leave notes or send custom emails

Getting your Veeqo API Key

Log into your Veeqo account and navigate to Settings > Users. Select a user by clicking the “edit” pencil button. Scroll down and find the API Key section. Take note of the API key and save it somewhere safe. DON’T SHARE IT WITH ANYBODY

Veeqo API Documentation here: https://developer.veeqo.com/docs

Integromat Setup (Free)

Create an account here: https://www.integromat.com/?pc=autoxyz

Getting your Shipping Carrier’s API keys

Most of the modern shipping carriers will have a “public” API that any authorized user can query. To get “authorized”, you will need an API key. Depending on the shipping carrier, you might already have an API key included in your account; you may search the settings page for it. If not, you might have to talk to a service representative or your account manager.

Once you’ve got your API keys, head over to their API documentation for information about what kind of format their APIs expect.

Sample API docs from Parcel2Go: https://www.parcel2go.com/api/docs/

Writing the automation in Integromat

To better understand how automation works in integromat, we need to keep two words in mind: Trigger and Action(s). On a particular workflow (called “scenario” in Integromat), there would be exactly 1 trigger which will be followed by action(s) when the trigger condition is satisfied.

For our case, our trigger would be scheduled to run every day before 12noon. So the only condition to satisfy is if it is 12:00 pm – then the whole automation will run.

As you can see above, we’ll only need a minimum of 5 modules to make this automation work.

Tag orders > Create Shipping Orders for them

First Module: GET Veeqo Orders

The first module ‘GET Veeqo Orders’ will return JSON data.

Second Module: JSON (Parse JSON)

The second module will divide the data into bundles; each bundle containing 1 order.

Third Module: POST Shipping Order to Carrier

3rd module: for each bundle created by the parser from module 2, we POST (request) for a Shipping order to be created. Depending on the authentication method or the format their API expects, more modules might be needed to Transform the data to something that their API understands.

The Veeqo GET Order from the first module also already includes the information about the product line items. Information about the Product Name, weight, volume, and SKUs are already included in the Response object returned. Most of the time, It will only be a matter of plugging them into the request to properly send the products with the Shipping Order request.

Fourth Module: Create Veeqo Shipment

Send a POST request to the Veeqo Shipment API to move the orders from awaiting_fulfillment or “Ready to Ship” into “Shipped”. Equivalent to adding a Tracking number on the UI.

Fifth Module: Remove “Ship this order” tag

We’ll need to remove the tag so that it doesn’t get triggered again on the next run. Well, technically, it won’t be fetched on the next run because the order would have moved out of “Ready to Ship” which we queried on module #1.

Note:
To find the id of your tags, you will have to call the Veeqo Tags API. A simple GET request to https://api.veeqo.com/tags with no parameters and no payload will return a list of all tags with their IDs and names. To do this, use an HTTP module in integromat and send a GET request to https://api.veeqo.com/tags. Make sure to tick the checkbox for “Parse response” to get data in a prettier format.

Conclusion

By applying tags to orders, we “marked” orders for Shipping Order creation. Automations in Integromat searches for those orders and send the Shipping Order requests for each one. Finally, after the Shipping Orders are sent, the Orders in Veeqo are moved from “Ready to Ship” into “Shipped” by inserting a Tracking Number into the Order via Veeqo Shipment API.

For the person managing the shipments, all that needs to be done will be to apply a tag before a “deadline” or schedule that you set your automations to run. For businesses that process hundreds of orders a day, this could mean man-hours savings of a couple of hours each day. For smaller business that process less, this means that an employee will never have to deal with spreadsheets and the probability of human errors that come with it. No more copy-pasting; no more working with CSVs; no more errors that you will have to fix down the line, taking up more of your time.

Let the machines talk to each other so you can focus on the things that add value to your business

Stay tune for Part 2! Shipment Tracking at-a-glance with Veeqo Tags

4. Write API requests to create orders to your preferred shipping carrier (Integromat)
5. Marking orders as “Shipped” in Veeqo
6. Creating Notes/Tags to provide more info

Today we see the fourth and last step to becoming faster, slicker, and efficient – Train & Implement. If you have missed the first three steps, read them here: step 1, step 2, step3 

Train & Implement 

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make when implementing new systems and software is to skimp on the training. The business owner (you) will try to save a few pounds by removing or cutting right back on the training. Often the training just consists of a technician loading it onto users’ PC’s and the technician gives the user a ten-minute ‘this is how you use it’ demo. The true power in these systems is normally the little time hacks and shortcuts. Please don’t make this mistake. Instead, look to find a way to have ongoing training and updates. We all use software differently and often when you sit with someone, you’ll see them do something and go “Wow, how did you do that?” One little hack can save hours of work for many people each month, how much is that worth?   

Review   

Better Never Stops…  

When Mercedes win the F1 World Championship do they stop developing their car and team?   

Of course, they don’t. Their ultra-competitive environment dictates that in the next race every team will step up to try to beat them. Their business is constantly innovating and improving.  Again, I want you to have the same mindset and approach. Just because you’ve done one round of improvements it shouldn’t stop there; it must be a continuous cycle: 

From the new processes you’ve implemented what were the expected improvements? Once these have settled down and embedded, what has actually happened, and therefore what are the new results? How can you improve these? Remember, faster slicker.  

• You should constantly strive for continuous improvements and better efficiencies. Bring key people together each month to keep the continuous improvement momentum going. Get the whole team brought into the philosophy by involving them: 

• Implement a staff suggestion scheme and ideas board to get them feeding ideas in. Some of these ideas may be off the wall, but sometimes these are the ones that trigger the really great improvements.   
• Run process improvement workshops in small teams to get them to re-invent what they do.  
• At the start of every day get your team to ask, “What went well yesterday? What didn’t go so well? What can we improve today?”  
• Work with your customers and suppliers and ask the same question, “How can we take time and complexity out of our shared processes?” 

Summary  

As I wrap up this chapter I’ll share with you a couple of case studies of how I’ve used this approach with my clients.    

The first is a window, doors, and conservatory company.   

With the business owner and a key manager, we set out on a mission to review all the processes within the business. We took over the boardroom for two days and during that time invited at least one person from each department to take us through what they did on a daily basis. Remember, the reality is king.  

Each person also brought in copies of all the paperwork and sales or operational materials they would use. Once completed, we were shocked by the number of forms and process steps. We found the customer’s name was written or typed 12 times. 

Now, let’s say it takes ten seconds to gather and write a customer’s name, and they dealt with over 1,500 customers per year. So: 1500 x 12 x 10 / 60 = 3,000 minutes or 50 working hours spent each year writing a customer’s name. The other issue is the potential to write it incorrectly and there’s nothing worse than getting someone’s name wrong.   

By re-mapping the processes, and removing duplication, we saved two days in the process and dramatically reduced the number of forms. In the longer term, we managed to reduce headcount by two and provide a better service to customers.   

The second case study is a remanufacturing company.   

The company employed 21 people and remanufactured around 18,000 units a year. We knew their business needed improving as the number of non-productive staff, versus the productive staff, was far too high which of course had a significant impact on their profitability.  

With the business owner and his team, we mapped all their current processes and gathered up all the current paperwork. They have a computerized sales and stock management system but, beyond that, no operational management system. Without manually counting or gathering information they had no instant data which could tell them the operational performance of the business; never knew at any one time how many jobs they had in the process, their productivity levels, parts used or stock levels, etc. They used an antiquated web-based ordering control system to generate job cards and at least five different spreadsheets and numerous paper forms, which were typed back into spreadsheets.   

They also have around 2% of units (360 units) returned each year under their no quibble warranty, these were replaced without testing or question in a straightforward exchange. But, if a labor claim was submitted, these were individually tested and a salesperson would spend two days a month replying to the customers to confirm whether it was valid or invalid, once an internal test procedure was conducted.   

We re-mapped the processes and, using Google Sheets and AppSheet, we created an operational management system we called Team Universal. This centralized all the data, removing all of the other spreadsheets and duplication. Using technology, the sales and stock management system ‘talks’ to Team Universal, which in turn also ‘talks’ to the courier management system. Most of the required data is only entered once and carried through the process. We also reviewed the warranty process. An online form is now submitted by customers and the majority of the process is automated or completed by a warehouse operative. All in all, we saved at least five days of administration per month, reduced the headcount by three people, and increased productivity by 25%. The investment in technology was around £10,000. As you can see from these two examples, a great deal can be gained from this approach.   

How much could you save in time, cost, complexity? And how much could you gain in a better customer experience?  

Just because you’ve always done it this way don’t get constrained by your past and don’t allow your business to become fat, lazy, and clumsy.   

I want you to accept that what you’ve got here is great and works but, to move forward, the business needs to evolve. Look at your business with a fresh pair of eyes and tap into the entrepreneurial mindset you have. But is going to take courage and time investment to drive the improvements to keep your business ahead of your competitors. If you stand still for long enough you will become a dinosaur and get left behind at a great rate of speed. 

Let’s dive right in, into step 3 (find step 1 and step 2 here). 

Map New 

It’s time to re-map your customers’ journey. The objective is to take as many steps out of the process as possible. Steps are the bends on your race track, they’re going to slow you down. The fastest form of racing is a drag strip, a straight line with no bends. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely your business could only have two processes, a start, and a finish. But you want to have the least number of bends possible. Using your analysis from above and the Critical Value Window above should give you only the bends you need.   

Look from a fresh perspective. How does your customer see it? Walk through the steps only your customer cares about. How does your customer feel?   

Don’t get bogged down with how you’re going to do it and try to ignore what you currently do.  With a clean sheet or wall re-map, you most wanted process. At each step write what information needs to be collected to hand on to the next process. Often, I’ve found if the company gathers more information at the start of the process, it removes a heap of questions or customer interactions further along the process.  

One of my clients, a telecoms company, we identified a bottleneck because each new telecom installation had a site survey by one of the installation teams, adding time and cost into the process. During the sales process, every site is visited by a salesperson. By implementing a smarter sales sheet and with some training the site survey can be conducted by the salesperson, saving the extra visit (which would invariably take half a day with travel) and taking at least three days out of the process for the customer.   

Add Technology 

This is probably my favourite bit of the process. Those that know me will have a wry smile because I’m quite techy and I love innovation. But this is where the magic happens. Technology and automation will propel your business forward like you wouldn’t believe. So much of what you do can be automated and the process ‘systematically driven’ rather than waiting for human intervention.   

It used to be the norm for a company to write process manuals or Standard Operations Procedures (SOP’s) and try to get each member of staff to follow them. As soon as something changed, the manuals or SOP’s would need to be amended and new copies re-issued. Now, if you create smart systems, you can push people along the process as the technology tells them what to do next. 

Slick modern companies invest in IT. I worked for the Automobile Association during the nineties when they went from having over 15 ‘radio rooms’ (call centre and deployment offices) down to just three serving the whole country. Now, most of their operation is completely systemised, with almost zero human intervention apart from the initial call; the patrols are deployed by complex algorithms.   

Look at how Uber has shaken up the taxi industry. There are also new banks emerging like Monzo; in just three years they’ve grown from zero to over two million customers by making banking really simple. They’ve reduced the cost to serve a customer from £65 down to £30 by using slick technology. But  

it’s their approach and mindset that’s really important; they’re constantly challenging how they can give a better customer experience and reduce complexity.   

These ‘disruptors’ are investing serious monies to re-invent their industries. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting you should invest anything like that kind of money. But I want you to use the same thinking and approach, and embrace technology. How can you provide a better customer experience and reduce complexity using technology?   

It doesn’t have to be that expensive, and if anyone suggests building you a bespoke system or customized dashboard from scratch, tread very carefully. There are so many free or low-cost platforms available that are off-the-shelf, easy to use, and easy to integrate with other systems.   

You may already have these systems in your business, but when were they last reviewed? These systems should enable a business and not disable it. So many times, I’ve found businesses putting up with systems that aren’t fit for purpose anymore (or never were).   

I want you to imagine a powered conveyer belt. At the start, your customer makes an inquiry and from here on, this conveyor belt, with the customer sitting on it, flows through your business. When it gets to each process intersection it slows waiting for the process to happen and continues only when that process has been completed. No one has to remember to do anything, the system does most of the easy thinking and ‘heavy lifting’. If you go back to the Critical Value Window, we identified those processes which added value to the customer. These are important to your customer and therefore it’s how you add value. The focus for your business should be on delivering your value, therefore everything else should either be stopped or done with automation where possible. This is the modern-day equivalent of the industrial revolution; machines and systems to automate menial tasks.  

Your biggest challenge with business systems will be to get them talking to each other. Fortunately, most of these are now cloud-based and have ‘API’ which basically means they can integrate or talk to other applications. It will be very rare if you can find one good system that will support your entire business needs. I know because I’ve tried for many clients to find them such a thing. What I’ve found is that one system might do one or two bits really well, their core systems. They try to develop bolt-ons to expand the capability but these seldom work well. I know of operations systems that have developed their own accounting systems, why? There are many really slick and cost-effective accounting platforms out there, why reinvent the wheel?   

Without knowing the exact requirements of your business it’s difficult for me to advise you on what platforms or systems to use. This is also a fast-changing world so rather than list recommended systems or customized dashboard options here, we’ll post it with our tools and try to keep it updated, just go to www.betterneverstops.global/tools).  

Read here the last step to becoming faster, slicker, and more efficient. 

You’re here I assume because you already read the first step to becoming faster, slicker, and efficient and have done mapping your current processes. Ready for business review?

Here is the second step:

Business Review 

Every business tells me “But this is our industry Adrian”, and “Our industry is different Adrian.” Every business is different but the race is the same; you need to get your car around that track as fast, as slick and as efficiently as possible without crashing.   

How complex is your customers’ journey? How long does it take from a customer’s point of view? How long does it take from a business point of view? How much physical time is spent processing the order?   

Time = Cost; if you reduce time, you can reduce cost or increase the ability to process more orders in less time. It’s that simple.  When you stand back and start to review your customers’ journey, think of it as a lap. I want you to take the F1 approach. How do we take time out of the lap?  

Things to look for business review:  

1. How many times do you collect and rewrite the customer’s details?  
2. What other information is duplicated along the route?  
3. Where are the bottlenecks, the places the process gets snarled up, and why?  
4. Are there places where it’s most likely that there will be customer or quality issues?  
5. What steps in the process are customer critical points? For example, communication points.   

I want you to look at every process step or piece of paperwork or screen with the clear objective of removing it. The only reason it will stay is that it is either: 

1. Business Critical – without it we couldn’t process a sales order or we have to collect for tax or compliance reasons. 
2. Customer Value – Our customer requires it and it adds value.   

To help you decide which can stay I’ll share with you our simple “Critical Value Window”. The template can be found on www.betterneverstops.global/tools.  

Below is a sample of what it looks like. 

I want you to be really harsh with your processes and each one needs to fall into a segment within the window below. Each process step is either:  

Business Critical – you need to carry out this step or record this information because it’s critical to enable the business to process the order or for compliance  

Customer Value – you need to carry out this step or record this information because of its value to your process  

Not Critical – this is something you do because…? If it’s something you do for the business but it’s not critical it goes in here.  

No Value – it’s something you do for the customer but it doesn’t add value and the customer wouldn’t notice or care if you didn’t do it.  

Anything in the top sections needs to stay, but does it? Be ruthless with your processes and paperwork, if it doesn’t add value or isn’t critical, do you need it?  

Anything in the bottom sections can go.   

There you go, two steps out of four to becoming faster, slicker, and efficient. In the next blog post, I’ll be talking about the third step, Mapping New and Adding Technology. 

So, I have been talking about the efficiency of business processes in the previous blog (read it here), and here is the first step to becoming faster, slicker, and more efficient. 

Here is a simple four-step process to follow to become efficient:

1. Map your current business processes
2. Review
3. Map New and Add Technology
4. Test & Implement

Today, let’s discuss the first step.

Step 1: Map Your Current Business Processes 

You’re going to need to set yourself time aside to do this exercise. There’s a good chance you’ll try to put this off for as long as possible because potentially it’s going to be hard work and time-consuming. To improve you need to know where you are and I promise you the business will eventually thank you for it.   

There are two key rules to this process:  

1. Reality is king – it’s not what you think the process is, it’s what actually happens day-to-day.  
2. Don’t try to fix it – while reviewing your business processes it’s tempting to dive in and start fixing. DON’T! You’ll only slow the flow of review and lose sight of the purpose 

What we want to achieve is to have all the business processes laid out on a floor, laid out on a table, or hung up around a room.  This way you can stand back and see the whole picture. It’s also important to collect the paperwork or screenshots of the information and data you’re collecting and inputting. This way you’ll see the business processes and underneath it the corresponding paperwork trail.

Start at the beginning of your customer’s journey and work along until the final process, in most cases, this is normally in accounts with the transaction getting reconciled with the bank.   

At various points, your customer passes through different departments or people. Here’s how to rule one above applies, you must get someone from that department to tell you how they do it. Remember, “Reality is King”. You’ll need to explain that the process isn’t designed to catch anyone out, you’re there to make the customer journey better. In order to do so, you need to know what actually happens, not what people think happens.   

Start at the beginning of your customers’ journey. You’ll need to work with marketing or sales. How does your customer first contact you? It will probably be in many ways: a contact form on your website, an email, a phone call. What information is collected, on what forms? Keep going through the process; what happens next? And next? Make sure the people doing the process are the ones telling you what happens. Keep collecting the paperwork including brochures and sales materials. What about suppliers’ forms, how do they require information, and in what form?  

In some businesses this might be fairly straightforward, some will need a lot of room. Once you’ve got right the way through to the end of the customer journey, normally reconciling the bank account, stand back and look. This bit is normally the amazing “oh shit how did that happen?” moment when you realise the complexity of what you do. 

So, give yourself time to do this very important step and once you’re done, you can check out the next step here.