Big changes can feel like a big risk, but with pick-up lockers comes a whole slew of benefits that your residents will absolutely love. Updating your buildings to include smart lockers is one way to provide added security and convenience for everyone who uses them.
As you transition delivery systems to include smart lockers, here are three scenarios that make these updated systems so popular with residents.
Scenario One: Late Night Retrieval
One of the most convenient aspects of pick-up lockers is that residents can retrieve packages at their leisure – independent of office hours, available staff, and holiday schedules. This is a huge bonus for people at all life stages: college kids, working professionals, busy mothers, retired globe-trotters returning home from a sunny beach. The list goes on.
Picture this: a young law student is working at a firm as a summer associate. Her work this summer will determine her future job prospects and area of expertise. Because of this, she is working grueling hours and at home sporadically at odd times. Her stress level is high and she feels isolated from friends and family.
On an evening when she returns late to her apartment building, she remembers that her smartphone alerted her to a delivery earlier in the day. At 1 am, she approaches the smart lockers and quickly enters the code to retrieve the package. The locker automatically pops open. Inside is a care package and a note from her mother, who lives in another state, with well wishes and words of encouragement. Being able to pick up her package at such a late hour results in a feeling of contentment and support that lasts through the week – allowing her to wake up in the morning and begin the day with newfound vigor. If this young and driven professional had had to wait for available desk hours, who knows when she would have been able to carve out time to pick up this package?
Scenario Two: Protected From Porch Pirates
Another aspect of pick-up lockers that your residents will love is the added security these smart lockers provide. With porch piracy skyrocketing in these online-delivery times, this is a growing concern for consumers everywhere. There are all sorts of security measures that are gaining traction as a means to mitigate this problem, including cameras and apps like Amazon Key where delivery professionals gain access to the garage or house for a short period of time.
But not everyone is comfortable with a stranger in their home – for good reason. And not everyone has a garage or the capacity to institute these technologies on their own. For apartment complexes, dorms, libraries, and other situations, however, smart lockers are an effective option for securing the deliveries of all residents.
In a scenario where a local filmmaker has ordered a new hard drive for a project that needs to be saved as soon as possible, that package will be securely stored in a dry, temperature-controlled environment until it is picked up by the resident, eliminating the possibility for theft and weather exposure in the meantime.
Scenario Three: Multi-package pick-up
In our society today, it is important to emphasize efficient and sustainable means of going about our daily activities. There are certainly cases where instituting technology can complicate a situation, instead of simplifying things as it intended – luckily smart lockers are not one of those situations.
In addition to 24/7 customer support, there’s another way that smart lockers help us to avoid complications altogether: delivery professionals, couriers, FedEx, and UPS can put multiple items into one locker for a resident. This may seem like a small feature, but it is a massive time-saver for residents on the go.
For example, let’s say there’s a busy mom with 3 young children. Waiting for her at home, one locker contains multiple deliveries, ready to be retrieved by her at her earliest convenience. Mid-morning, on the way home from the park, she whizzes by the smart lockers on the way back to the apartment to retrieve a small bag of groceries, an order of reusable diapers she bought online, and a letter from grandma for the kids. What might otherwise be an entire day of errands is becomes a 3-minute detour for her on her way to get the kids upstairs for nap time. She now has ample time to take care of her own needs as a human, while simultaneously providing love and care for her family.
Whatever the Scenario – Smart Lockers Make For Easy Pick-Up
Consumer habits, office culture, and community needs continue to shift quickly in the world. As we adjust and move through a global pandemic, new technologies, and a growing emphasis on environmentally-conscious options, so will the situations we encounter in our everyday lives. Whatever the scenario, smart lockers are an effective and efficient way to make the delivery process as quick and easy as possible so that we are better able to focus on the challenges at hand.
