How Sinch SMS helps Budbee keep deliveries smooth

When the team at Budbee decided to revolutionize the way packages were delivered to customers, they knew SMS would be a key part of it. Find out why Budbee, with 30 million customers in 4 countries so far, chose Sinch to provide those texts.

Challenge: Delivering the perfect package

For home delivery upriser Budbee, the customer experience has always been front and center. Since 2016 the company has strived to make e-commerce deliveries happen where, when, and how buyers want. 

“Other delivery services in the market were primarily for B2B deliveries. Home deliveries were offered in the daytime, when people were at work, and not very consumer-friendly in terms of tracking and tailoring,” says Simon Strindberg, Chief Marketing Officer at Budbee.  

The team at Budbee envisioned an innovative, flexible delivery service, where customers could choose the details of their delivery to make sure it suits them – and stay up-to-date on each step of the delivery process. They wanted to let customers choose everything: the day and hour of delivery, if the package was handed over in person or left outside the door, if a photo should be sent to confirm delivery, if the delivery man should knock on the door or ring the doorbell…etc. 

But how do you give customers so many options without it becoming a logistical nightmare? How do you keep the whole process…easy?  

Solution: SMS: a zero-friction solution

“When a consumer is presented with Budbee as a delivery option, we wanted zero friction in terms of being a first-time user,” Axel Möller, CTO of Budbee, explains. 

And what does every customer have? A mobile phone – and thus, access to SMS. 

“SMS has been a vital part of our service since day one, it’s considered more personal than email or a push notification. By implementing SMS, customers get the full Budbee experience with no extra effort.” 

Budbee sends a combination of text messages, such as a text including a link to web tracking for each unique order, texts with options for delivery customization, and more. 

Results: Great quality, great price  

Of course, with that many SMS sent per order, Budbee needed a supplier that could deliver reliable SMS while keeping costs down. 

The team heard about Sinch via word-of-mouth, from other satisfied partners – and quickly decided it was the right fit. 

“We did look into alternative SMS providers, but they haven’t performed as well. Sinch was able to give us great quality for a reasonable price.”  

“We spend a lot less time on maintenance than we used to with our previous provider,” says Axel Möller. “Maybe about half the amount of time. So the business impact is that we’re spending less on technical resources and updates.”  

In the delivery business, things move quickly – but that wasn’t a problem for Sinch. CMO Simon Strindberg says that implementing SMS from Sinch only took a couple of days, followed by two or three weeks of testing by Budbee before everything went live.  

And how do Budbee customers feel about the service? Well, with millions of reviews and an average rating of just below 4.9 out of 5 stars, it seems they’re certainly doing something right! 

“I personally have seen many reviews that mention the communication as a big part of it – they really appreciate the notifications,” Strindberg says. 

In addition, since Budbee purchases large volumes of SMS and got a good price from Sinch, the company also lowered its communication costs. Now that’s what we call a win-win!