Problem 

Capsule is a delivery pharmacy that relies on customers choosing two-hour delivery windows to receive their medication by courier. Reschedules are a necessary but complicated process within Capsule’s workflow that increases customer service tickets since there is not a way to “reschedule” in the app. To understand how to reduce both reschedules and customer service tickets related to reschedules, the team studied customer behavior around reschedules using several different methods. 

Hypotheses

• Customers are rescheduling orders because the customer service team is offering 

• Customers forget about delivery windows and schedule over them

• Customers’ plans change frequently and they aren’t home for the delivery 

• Capsule reschedules some orders but most come from customer reschedules 

• Customers click on the wrong delivery time

Methods 

• Small batch survey of 73 customers who experience a reschedule

• Exploratory user interviews 

• Quantitative analytics that inform customer behavior - the “Quant Insights” team 

• All three methods were combined into one report detailing suggestions for next steps to improve the reschedule experience. 

Findings 

• Around half of reschedules are initiated by Capsule, the other half are initiated by the customer. 

  • Capsule reschedules were more likely to upset the customer and create escalations

  • Customers reschedule because: 

    • Their plans changed beforehand

    • They forgot about existing plans and had to cancel

    • They missed the delivery (busy, stepped out briefly)

• Most customers are not serial reschedulers

• Most customers reschedule during or after their delivery window, not before. 

• The farther out from a delivery window someone orders, the more likely they are to reschedule.

• Customers overwhelmingly want the ability to reschedule on their own in the product. 

Takeaways

• Improvements were made to logistics and inventory processes to reduce the reschedule issues. 

• Given that most customers reschedule during or after their delivery window and that most reschedule because of plan changes during their delivery window, the team halted plans for self-service reschedules in the app. Instead, the team opted for a less invasive solution by including a text message delivery reminder a day ahead of a customer’s delivery window.