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Blink

Blink is a sustainable last-mile delivery service based in Milan, Italy. They use MagicBell to facilitate faster resolution on delivery issues, easier communications for delivery teams, and a more streamlined work process.

Since 2019, Blink’s fleet of cyclists has helped vendors -- from ecommerce entrepreneurs to brick-and-mortar shops -- ship their goods to customers. Blink wanted to offer their vendors something that micro and large carriers couldn’t: a customizable, same-day shipping experience that bypasses Milan’s choking traffic. This approach, paired with an eco-conscious business model, has steadily drawn more customers to Blink -- and following their engagements with YCombinator and Techstars, the business has grown rapidly.

The challenge

After Blink incorporated a grocery delivery service to help their community during COVID-19 lockdowns, the startup saw a huge surge in demand. The Blink team relied primarily on email and SMS as the core of their notification system but found the logistics of order placement, pickup, and delivery difficult to manage as the business expanded. Central to their operations were notifications, which they run on three fronts: on the backend, where the operations teams processed vendor orders uploaded into the Blink system; amongst couriers, for continuous updates on a delivery’s progress; and on the frontend, to notify vendors if an uploaded order had failed or to alert them to changes.

As more customers onboarded with Blink, the team struggled to keep emails from slipping through the cracks, and constantly scanning inboxes for new orders was no longer efficient.

“MagicBell has already helped us scale. Without this system, it would have been impossible to handle everything. I can’t think of any other alternative we could have used.”

Marco Turetta, CTO and co-founder of Blink

The Blink team knew that email and SMS was not scalable model for notifications, particularly because of the many touchpoints involved across their order cycle and the promise of same-day delivery. They need a solution that would make the experience easier for their customers, couriers, and their scheduling team.

They thought that the only way to introduce a dynamic, affordable, and easy-to-integrate notification system for internal team software (but also work with their customers’ existing systems) would be something they’d have to build themselves.

While Blink had built their own mapping and GPS system to track deliveries, they realized that building such a notification system was going to be complex and expensive for the bootstrapped startup -- and would require ongoing investment and iteration as the company scaled. They considered using WebSocket, but that would demand more time than they had.

The solution

Blink’s team found MagicBell through the YCombinator community and decided to test the embeddable notification system because of the product’s effortless integration and low cost.

With their new notification system up and running in ten minutes, the team started using MagicBell for their internal “control tower,” the interface where orders are processed and assigned to couriers.

They also used MagicBell to instantly notify vendors if an order had failed to upload, reducing time to resolution. If delivery wasn’t marked as completed on time, the Blink team no longer had to call a courier to find out what was happening -- they could communicate instantly through notifications.

The results

Blink found MagicBell’s plug-and-play notification system and clean user interface ideal for their operations, and began reaping the benefits overnight. The low barrier to adoption meant the team immediately took to MagicBell’s real-time alerts -- no training required -- which facilitated the faster resolution of delivery issues, easier communications for delivery teams, and a more streamlined work process.

Now, when a customer places a delivery, the operations team is notified in real-time -- and no longer has to spend time meticulously scanning their overflowing inboxes.

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A screenshot of Blink's Control Tower with MagicBell

Additionally, the team is able to tailor what information their notifications include, making resources far more accessible. If an order fails to upload to the system, the operations team can click on the notification to go directly to the order file -- rather than search for it. The interactivity alone has saved them hours each week.

Blink is rolling out MagicBell’s solution across their business operations, extending the notification component to their customers for a streamlined, vendor-facing push notification system. Since MagicBell’s setup is so intuitive, Blink says the solution will be something their less tech-savvy customers will easily adopt. MagicBell’s customizable designs also make it painless to create branded notifications, ensuring customers have a consistent experience.

MagicBell is a perfect addition to collaborative and communication apps, enabling multi-channel notifications and ensuring users stay on top of their work across browser, mobile, or in-app.

Unlock the full potential of your app with a perfect notification stack.

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