Not one sofa caught in the afternoon storm
Gabriela runs a small furniture delivery business in Panama City, with two vans and a lot of sofas.
Listen to the story:
The challenge
In the rainy season the afternoon storms arrive like clockwork. A sofa carried through a downpour is a ruined sofa, and flooded streets trap her vans for hours. She rebooks customers one call at a time, usually too late.
How the flow works
With xMap Flows, Gabriela built Skywatch. Skywatch is an AI employee: a flow of 7 blocks.
Every morning at six,
Every morning at 6 (Schedule)
Skywatch takes the day's deliveries,
Today's deliveries (My data)
checks the rain forecast at each address,
Rain at each address (Weather forecast)
and where heavy rain is coming,
Heavy rain today? (Branch)
moves the delivery to tomorrow morning in her calendar,
Moved to tomorrow morning (Google Calendar)
tells the customer the new time,
Tell the customer (WhatsApp Business)
and plans the vans' route through the rest.
The dry stops in order (Route planner)
What it solves
- Sofas soaked in storms: solved by Weather forecast and Branch
- Vans stuck in floods: solved by Branch and Route planner
- Rebooking call by call: solved by Google Calendar and WhatsApp Business
The result
On Tuesday, Skywatch sees heavy rain coming for six of her fourteen addresses. Those customers get a message at seven with a new morning slot, and the vans do the other eight before lunch. Not one sofa gets wet, and Gabriela makes no calls.
Gabriela can't stop the storms. She just stopped driving into them.
An illustrative scenario: the figures are modelled to show what the flow produces, not a customer's results.
The flow, block by block
- 1
- 2
Today's deliveries
Brings in a table you uploaded or a list you saved on the My data page: your stores, customers, target accounts or sites.
- 3
Rain at each address
The weather forecast (Open-Meteo, from national weather services) for up to 16 days: temperature, rain, wind and UV.
- 4
- 5
- 6
Tell the customer
WhatsApp Business · WhatsApp
Send text, media and template messages from your WhatsApp Business number.
- 7
The dry stops in order
Puts the places that reach it in the best order to visit them in a day, from a start you pick: one route, one for each rep (by a field such as owner), or shared out between a number of reps.
Templates to build it
Ready-made flows with the same blocks. Open one, change the city and the kind of place, and run it.
- Storm coming: bring the harvest forwardWhen a storm is coming, WhatsApp to bring the harvest forward; otherwise the week ahead.
- Rain coming: push delivery at the right branchesWhen rain is expected, branch managers get a WhatsApp to push delivery promos.
- Daily operations briefing for every hubA daily operations briefing per hub, with a risk score and alerts for the risky ones.
- Heat stop for outdoor work, every hourA WhatsApp heat stop to supervisors when a site reaches 45 degrees.
- Frost warning for my farmsA WhatsApp frost warning to farm managers when nights get cold.
- Open house this weekend: the weatherThe weekend weather for each open house, with a tip.
Industries
Learn how it works
- Territory planningDividing a market into areas for reps or teams.
- Route planningPutting a day's visits into a good order, for one rep or several.
- Data enrichmentAdding details to records you already have.
- How a flow worksTriggers, items, fields and the order blocks run in.
- Plan the day’s routes for your repsPut the stops in the best order, one route or one for each rep, with directions links.
- Weather forecastUp to 16 days for each place or city.
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- Twenty new lockers, every one where people liveBen plans the parcel locker network for a large delivery company in Vancouver.
- Six drivers, fair shares, no door twiceYi-ting runs a small family delivery company in Taipei, with six drivers and orders from three online shops.
Build this flow on your own city
Run a live search on the home page without an account, or let Ask xMap build the flow from one sentence.