According to Lehigh University’s Executive Director of University Business Services, they have seen a 10% to 12% increase in mailroom activity each year for the past 10 years, and there are no signs of this trend slowing.
The college move-in day was once a big deal. Students arrived at the campus with boxes, furniture, and helping hands to get them settled. But now, most students are abandoning moving trucks and boxes in favor of ordering their essentials online and having them shipped directly to the campus mailroom.
It’s a smart move for students; they get to avoid hauling their stuff from home to college. But for mailrooms, the rising influx of student packages and deliveries is proving why there is a need for package tracking software and forcing campuses to rethink their mailroom strategy.
Online Shopping – Growing Trend and a Growing Problem
Nowadays, college students are making more online purchases than ever. They order everything online; from dorm room furniture and supplies to groceries, textbooks, and clothing are entering campus mailrooms in droves while mailroom workers are scrambling to deal with the fallout.
Dedicated services, which primarily cater to college students (like Amazon Prime Student), are only fueling this surge in online buying. It’s tough to compete with mobile shopping, free two-day shipping, and below retail prices on just about everything a college student needs.
Not to mention, Amazon’s huge investment in last-mile delivery technology and services; it seems like the e-commerce giant is preparing for online shopping trends to take center stage for every possible buyer.
One of the biggest concerns with this is for older mailrooms that were built at a time when most of the mail was flat, small and could easily fit inside a 3×5 mailbox. They weren’t designed to deal with piles of large packages, which is forcing workers to come up with new ways of processing and storing items for pickup.
Most workers are also finding their old pen and paper package tracking isn’t feasible to keep up with the current inrush. With hundreds of packages entering the mailroom every day, manually tracking packages is a repetitive, time consuming, and expensive job.
The Solution
University mailroom package tracking software, like TekCore’s package tracking software, TekTrack, is designed to streamline the entire process; from the time a package is received until it is delivered to faculty and staff, or students come to pick up their packages. Every campus mailroom can use the package tracking software to easily scan and log packages. TekTrack is customizable to any campus mailroom’s workflow, provides full chain-of-custody, automated email notifications, signature capture at the time of pick up or delivery, and much more.
The time spent on each package is reduced from minutes to seconds, freeing up precious resources, keeping waiting lines shorter, and placing a higher level of confidence and accountability in the mailroom. Contact TekCore to learn how a package tracking software solution like TekTrack can help save your mailroom time and money.
Guest article written by: Thomas Williams
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