by GetSwift | Aug 26, 2015 | Uncategorized
From currencyfair —
Hot Australian Tech Companies To Watch
CVCheck – Never again will you hire someone whose CV is incorrect or perhaps has more fiction than fact. Employers, property managers, and even individuals can use CVCheck to verify information or add value to their own CV. The company does over 700 checks in 190 countries. Don’t hire another employee without using CVCheck to make sure that they are who they say they are.
Mystro – Mystro is an advanced program is a complete project management site for healthcare professionals. Mystro takes care of appointments, assigning rooms, and more. It makes total office management simpler and more efficient. There are a lot of new features in the works, such as a mobile service area tool and daily updates to service providers that will make Mystro even more powerful. (Facebook – Twitter)
Car Next Door – This is an idea whose time has come: Renting a privately owned vehicle from your neighbor through an online database. For only $25 a day, you can rent someone’s car for whatever you need. This ingenious idea can give a small business or start-up owner the transportation that they need without having to buy a car and vehicle owners get a little bit of extra cash. (Facebook – Twitter)
Remindful – An Australia-based SMS reminder service, Remindful is simple, but effective application that sends an SMS message to clients and customers reminding them that they have an appointment with your business. With this program you will reduce the number of missed appointments and downtime and since it’s only $20 per month, this application can pay for itself after just one saved appointment. (Facebook)
RosterElf – With RosterElf, it is easy to roster staff, avoiding open shifts or double staffing. RosterElf works on a smartphone or a tablet and makes it very easy to share the roster with the entire staff. It even allows you to use SMS or email notification for employees. No service business should be without this simple and powerful app. (Twitter – Facebook)
HealthEngine – This is a home-grown booking and health directory for patients and practitioners. The patient side provides an easy-to-use directory of providers around the country. Users can search for GPs, dentists, and specialists from all over the country. Providers are able to choose from a number of marketing packages that will help to promote their business on the website and off. (Twitter – Facebook)
Swift – An old idea is getting a new lease on life. They’ve built a sophisticated logistics management platform that gives users visibility over their fleet, automates the distribution of task assignments with a proprietary batching algorithm and communicates directly with the receiver to maximise worker uptime so they can fulfil more tasks. Started as an after-hours alcohol delivery service, it has now expanded to include many more stores and products. This is a great asset for any business that is seeking to expand its customer base without a large up-front investment. (Twitter – Facebook)
Tanda – An online automated time and attendance monitor, Tanda handles rosters, timesheets, and other functions that help to eliminate time theft. The interface is simple and intuitive. It even provides an automated award interpreter, making shift awards a simple process. Every business will be able to maintain more accurate payroll records through the use of these tools from Tanda. (Twitter – Facebook)
SafetyCulture – SafetyCulture has created two products that work together, iAuditor and Safety Culture. iAuditor allows for mobile safety inspection reports and SafetyCulture gathers data from entire teams all in one place. The purpose is to increase and streamline safety solutions in the workplace. The company is an innovator that is setting standards around the world for this type of product. (Twitter – Facebook)
by GetSwift | Aug 17, 2015 | Uncategorized
Whenever you think of logistics, the concept is always to successfully bring the item from point A to point B. In its purest form, it is a very simple concept. Yet, when it comes to courier and other delivery services, there are a few more variables that can impact efficiency:
- Delivery Directions for multiple batching
- Waiting on the customer to come downstairs
- Locating the address fast
- Contacting the customer fast
- Communicating accurate ETAs and real-time updates
If a delivery driver is on an hourly wage, then it is in the business owner’s immediate interest to maximise the hourly wage expense. To do this we need to ensure the driver does as many deliveries as possible. One extyra delivery more per hour can increase the company return on a driver wage by up to 35%.
In the spirit, here are 7 tips to make your delivery system more efficient:
- Send drivers on a “right-turn-only-route” to speed them up and save mileage.
- Use software to tell the customer when we are close to ensure a fast and successful drop off.
- Batch and send multiple parcels with one driver who is going in the same direction.
- Offer navigation software to tell drivers how to avoid congested traffic. Warn drivers if they approaching congestion via a delivery app or software.
- Use software to notify more drivers to come and help when the business is becoming busy on a Friday night.
- Track your drivers on a map to time the preparation of food better.
- If you know your average food/parcel preparation time, delay notifying the local delivery fleet by that time + X minutes for parking
If you’d like to learn more about how to get started with GetSwift’s delivery software, give us a shout or try it out free for 30 Days.
by GetSwift | Aug 17, 2015 | Uncategorized
With all the delivery options that are available today, it’s easy to forget that the value of these services transcends the hype. While the benefits of delivery management software to the consumer are clear, there are still some people who are wondering if the rat race of keeping up with on-demand delivery expectations is hurting or helping small businesses. Small- and medium-sized businesses are challenged to deliver on consumers’ increasing expectations.
We assure our clients that streamlining the delivery processes through our software has the ability to turn those pains into profit. In today’s changing world, the right dispatching software and mobile apps are considered critical to streamlining your deliveries.
Before you decide to invest in delivery management software, it is very important that you have an understanding of its advantages. Here are a few keys advantages:
Customer Expectations
As customer expectations for convenience are increasing with the availability of on-demand experiences, more and more retailers are struggling to keep up. If you are a small business selling handmade items or cookies for delivery, you are no longer limiting your reach to the local foot traffic. You are now creating a much larger market for your distribution and if managed well, the delivery experience for these new customers can compound your business miles ahead of your delivery competitors. Our delivery management software company has enriched the lives hundreds of business owners, from startup to enterprise by reducing their delivery costs as much as 20 percent through enhanced driver efficiency and reduced real time support automation. Further, Swift has increased customer retention and the virality of local business brands enabling these brands to offer an innovative service that most business couldn’t dream of without needing to spend $100K+ building their own software.
Effective Communication
Majority of our clients provide on-demand or scheduled delivery. In order to perfectly manage fulfillment, there is the old way of communicating with customers about delivery. Remember those 16 digit tracking numbers from FedEx?
Well with Swift, we send your customer an SMS at every step of the delivery process:
- Order received by Joe’s Pizza
- Order accepted by James the driver
- Order picked up by James (track your order here)
- Order completed by James (how did we do feedback loop)
Gone are the days of taking hundreds of phone calls, emails and voicemails a week from customers wondering where their delivery is!
Swift businesses have reported up to a 65% reduction in customer enquiries since the began offering real time SMS updates and tracking. This can save a larger business on a customer support wage of $30,000-$40,000 depending on the region.
Driver Data
Restaurants: How do you know when to cook the next delivery meal if you have no way to track your drivers on a map? Florists: When a customer calls up and asks about their delivery how can you accurately quote them an ETA over the phone without putting them on hold for 5+ minutes?
Do you pay your drivers per hour or have some other arrangement? How do you track what to pay who to have a clear and better understanding about all driver expenses. Some small businesses have their driver’s self report by writing down their mileage at the beginning and end of a shift. Every driver who has the Swift app is tracked and data is pushed to you merchant portal to provide you with timely insights about team and individual performance and accurately compensate your drivers every week.
The advantages of delivery management software mentioned above are issues that can easily be solved by Swift without any upfront or hardware costs to get started. Try our Free 30-Day Trial.
by GetSwift | Aug 10, 2015 | Uncategorized
Due to a large number of enterprises and entrepreneurs trying out the Uber for X model, the repercussions are visible across several verticals. However, it is not always that businesses started using Uber for X end up tasting success. Read on to know the nine crucial factors that determine the success of your startup.
1. Define the problem statement correctly
First of all, you need to have a clear idea about the problem you intend to address with your startup.
Generally, Uber for X startups have to deal with customers of multiple types and mainly have to focus on the buyers and sellers. Hence, the problems you address needs to go down effectively with both the groups.
As of now, there have been several issues when businesses have been trying to address issues related to the on-demand market based on their self prescribed problem.
The founder of Dinnr, a startup that delivers ingredients on demand, has written about the reasons why his startup was not successful.
2. Economics regarding all units
Even if you are good enough on the funding end, it is essential that you have a clear idea about the unit economics. VCs would also ask for the unit economics once your startup reaches a certain stage and hence, you would have to work it out well in advance.
Initially, an accurate value of unit economics would not be predictable. However, you can always prepare a rough draft based on the transactions and eventually it can be turned into a robust model for unit economics.
You can also read about how Prim had failed in its unit economics due to the model it followed.
3. Frequency of Transactions
Uber was successful as the margins were high on an ongoing basis. The users of Uber were reportedly found to spend over $100 each month to use the service.
Services that usually follow the on-demand model usually end up having high retention rates and as a result, the revenues and transactions see a constant rise.
However, low transaction levels might result in the startups facing scalability issues.
4. Meeting the target critical mass
One of the major concerns among platforms that are into multiple sides is to reach the critical mass and entrepreneurs work hard to get to this point.
Once the critical mass is reached, it means that the customers of a startup are not denied of any of their services and the workforce of the startup is engaged above a pre-decided level. When this is attained, a company is said to have attained its critical mass.
5. Choosing the right designs for the business model
Irrespective of which business model is used, be it Uber for X or anything else, the business model design should stand apart from the others and it should be able to differentiate the startup from other offerings in the market. Hence, it is essential to choose the right business model.
6. Scheduled Model or Instant Model
Both scheduled and instant models are suitable choices based on your operating conditions. If your company needs comparatively larger fraction towards infrastructure and supply chain, it is recommended that you go ahead with an instant model and if you are starting your business afresh, you can go ahead with a scheduled model.
7. Aggregated Supply or Integrated Supply
If you are looking for reliability, you can hire contracted suppliers. Whereas, if you wish to include the scalability factor in your business, freelancers would be able to give you optimum results. There are several business models who initially hired contract suppliers based on their initial requirement and as they started growing, they included freelancers. Due to this, they were able to achieve both reliability up to a certain extent above which, it was entirely scalable.
8. Keep the target market size easily reachable
If you have to make your mark as a company, you would have to concentrate on the customers and connect with your customers better. Hence, it is better that you keep the total initial market reachable enough so that you would include quality in your business.
9. Knowledge about operating domain
On-demand startups find it difficult to succeed if they do not have a good knowledge about their domain. Hence, it is essential that you have adequate knowledge about your operating domain so that you would be able to address all customer issues with a better approach.
If you’d like to about how to get started with GetSwift’s delivery software, give us a shout or try it out free for 30 Days.
by GetSwift | Aug 10, 2015 | Uncategorized
For your on-demand app to succeed, it requires a combination of cutting-edge technology, easily usable features and innovation packed into it. In the initial stages, it is recommended that you decide on the software integrations carefully based on your idea, which would place you ahead of other players and would also be an all-new offering in the market.
Read on to learn about how to choose the best SMS and Voice API for your mobile app to help you succeed in the on-demand market. You should compare all the features that are available without taking into consideration any other factors. Before jumping into side-by-side comparisons of API providers, let’s first ask some foundational questions:
Is VOIP and Text SMS integration essential for your on-demand mobile app?
Definitely, integration of VOIP and Text SMS for your on-demand mobile app is essential.
Without the integration, your mobile app would be similar to a mobile phone that does not have a SIM card. You would not be able to make use of SMS and VOIP services for the on-demand app, which his highly required to facilitate communication with the users. By having such integrations in place, users would be well informed and thereby, your service quality will boost drastically. Listed below are some of the important uses of VOIP and SMS integration:
Provide OTP and Verification Calls
To ensure that the registrations and users are genuine, you would have to verify their mobile numbers when they are signing up or placing an order. This can be done without any hassles when you make use of an API to do the job.
Texts and Calls from within the app
If you wish to communicate with your mobile app users, it can be done from within the app by using API integration and the entire communication can be done seamlessly. These integrations can be used across any platform, be it iOS or Android.
Notifications based on events
When customers place orders or there is any update regarding their order, it is essential that you notify them on time. By sending out real-time notifications, the quality of customer service can be improved greatly and the entire process can be automated when you make use of APIs.
Masking of Numbers
When communication has to happen between the company and the customer, a high level of privacy is required and thus, the numbers should not be visible. By making use of APIs, you can hide your number and also of the customer, so that no privacy issues arise.
Send out broadcast messages
If you are running any promotional campaigns, offers or if you have to notify all the customers regarding anything, you would have to send out broadcast messages that reach all your customers or a particular group of customers. This can be done by using the Text SMS API.
Due to the above mentioned factors, integration of API to facilitate voice calls and SMS are highly essential. Let us now look into the various options available for APIs.
Factors that need to be taken into consideration before choosing an API
- Stability: If the API works all the time without any issues.
- Pricing: If the costs incurred in API is feasible and within the budget.
- Verification: The method used by the API for verification, which can either be a voice call or by sending a OTP.
- Fixed Number: If they are providing you with a dedicated number or not, which is entirely based on your preference.
- Delivery Reports: Reports that indicate if the intended messages/broadcasts have reached the recipients or not.
- Local Availability: If the API works without issues in your region/country of operation.
- Complexity: The ease with which the API can be integrated to your app.
Some of the leading Voice and SMS API providers in the Android and iOS platforms with the pricing:
We bring to you a comparison of the 4 major SMS and Voice API providers: Twilio, Sinch, Nexmo and Plivo. Also, the prices compared are in the USA market and the list of features provided by each API is also mentioned. By going through the details provided about the API providers, you would be able to decide easily on the API that would be best-suited for your mobile app.
Other essential factors that need to be taken into consideration
The indicated prices are only for the USA market and you would have to check with the availability and pricing in your respective countries of operation. Make sure that you check out all the features.
Read on to know more about each API provider along with their features.
Twilio API
- The SMS package is pre-defined and the cost for the initial 5 million messages is $0.0075 per SMS and the next 20 million messages will be charged at $0.004 per SMS.
- There are different packages available for MMS, Shortcodes etc.
- They have their own product known as Authy which is used for two-way authentication.
- The price for a local number is $1 per month and a toll-free number will be charged at $2 monthly.
- Recording calls will be charged at $0.0035 per minute while call storage would be charged at $0.0005 per minute.
- Basic conference calls can be done for free. International conference calls will be charged $0.0020 for each participant for every minute.
- Leading corporations such as Uber, Instacart, Coca-Cola and PayPal make use of Twilio.
Sinch API
- Calling within the app is free for up to 25,000 minutes following which the cost would be $0.005 per minute.
- Phone calls made from the app would be charged at $0.01 per minute.
- Incoming SMS is free in Sinch.
- All verifications made will be charged $0.0075 per verification.
- SMS are free sup to 25,000 messages per month following which every message would cost $0.0035.
- Companies such as Truecaller, Spylt, BeepMe, Tango and Swedbank make use of Sinch.
Nexmo API
- The best feature of Nexmo is that all incoming messages are free.
- Verifications are charged at $0.1350 per verification.
- Both toll free number and normal number are available for the same price: $0.90 monthly.
- Sharing of short codes are free on Nexmo.
- Short code incoming messages are charged at $0.005 per SMS.
- Companies such as Alibaba, Viber, Expedia, Zipcar and Airbnb make use of Nexmo.
Plivo API
- Call Recording and Call storage are available for free in Plivo.
- Outgoing calls are charged at $0.0030 while incoming calls are charged at $0.0210 coming from toll-free numbers.
- There is no charge for either short code or long code incoming messages.
- Delivery reports are available on a real-time basis.
- Short code numbers are charged at $4500 for 3 months.
- Companies such as Homejoy, Mozilla, Pagerduty, Netflix and CallHub make use of Plivo.
The Verdict: Twilio or Nexmo or Plivo or Sinch?
Ultimately, before integrating an API to your mobile app, you would have to take into consideration several factors based on your usage and requirements. If you are willing to settle for a basic solution, you can choose between Plivo or Nexmo as the costs are less. If you are riding high on funds, Twilio would be the best possible option.
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