Convenient disposal of coffee capsules

Starting position

Coffee capsules are made of valuable, reusable materials: the aluminium can be recycled and reused. The coffee grounds are composted and turned into fertiliser – and used for example in the vineyards of winegrowers in the Lavaux region. There are more than 3,700 collection points available in Switzerland for recycling. But how do you get customers not to simply throw their used capsules in the bin if they don’t want to go to the collection point?

The joint solution

To prevent used capsules from simply ending up in the normal household waste bin, Nespresso has been working with Swiss Post since 2012 to offer a free collection solution called “Recycling at Home”. Nespresso customers order their coffee capsules on the Nespresso customer portal, at the same time requesting a free recycling bag, which is delivered to their home together with the capsules.

When the recycling bag is full, customers can put the tightly closed bag in their letter box storage compartment whenever they choose and without advance notice. The bag’s yellow tab must protrude from the mailbox so it is clearly visible. The mail carrier can then simply pick it up on their next delivery round and send it to Nespresso for recycling. And the best part: the recycling bags and collection by the mail carrier are completely free of charge for the customer.

Putting an end to bottle chaos

Starting position

When it comes to recycling, the Swiss are world champions. But empty PET drinks bottles can quickly pile up at home and the collection point is not exactly just around the corner. With convenient options for consumers, recycling is even easier.

The joint solution

In collaboration with Swiss Post, PET-Recycling Schweiz offers a way to return PET drinks bottles very easily: customers can order their paid 45-litre collection bags online, fill them with empty PET bottles and leave them beside their letter box. Swiss Post’s mail carriers pick up the filled recycling bags as they go about their normal delivery rounds and take them to the delivery point. From there, the bags are taken – again as part of normal operations – to the nearest letter center, where PET-Recycling Schweiz collects the bags and feeds the bottles into its own recycling process.

With this solution, PET-Recycling Schweiz with Swiss Post as its logistics partner offers another convenient recycling solution throughout Switzerland – in addition to the 50,000 public PET collection points already in place.

Disposing of small electrical appliances conveniently at the letter box

Starting position

Over the past 30 years, since SENS eRecycling has been in business, 830,000 tonnes of materials have been recovered from defective and discarded electrical appliances – including steel, aluminium, copper, zinc and even gold. But what do you offer customers who don’t want to go to the landfill just for that singing Christmas tree, that ringing children’s book or that defective headlamp?

The joint solution

As a logistics partner of SENS eRecycling, Swiss Post is testing a collection service. For the test, SENS eRecycling is supplying households with its “Electro Recycling Bags”, in which surplus or defective small electrical appliances can be conveniently deposited in the mailbox. Anything that fits into the Electro Recycling Bag and contains electrical or electronic components is collected – for example hair dryers, irons, mixers, hand-held vacuum cleaners or clock radios. Swiss Post’s mail carriers recognize the bags by the protruding tab, pick them up as they go about their normal delivery rounds and take them to the delivery point, where SENS eRecycling collects the bags and ensures proper, environmentally friendly disposal of the goods.

What to do with old TV boxes and routers?

Starting position

In their logistics/distribution, telecommunications companies such as Swisscom or UPC Switzerland want to ensure sustainable returns management for the devices they sell. They want their customers to be able to return old or defective devices, for example network routers or TV boxes, as easily and conveniently as possible.

The joint solution

If a customer wants to return a defective device, they receive a parcel from Swisscom or UPC Switzerland with a document including a tab that can be torn off. The surplus or defective device is packed in the parcel and placed in the letter box, and the yellow tab is fixed to the letter box so that it is clearly visible. The tab tells Swiss Post’s mail carriers that there is a parcel to be picked up, and they take it to the delivery point, where the parcels are collected and forwarded to Swisscom or UPC Switzerland. The devices are repaired and put back into circulation by the two companies.

Easy donation of clothes

Starting position

Used clothes that people no longer wear but are still in good condition can be donated. Clothes like this donated to the “Red Cross Cantonal Association of Bern” benefit people and social projects in the Canton of Bern. Donors either bring the clothes directly to “La Trouvaille”, the Red Cross network of second-hand warehouses, or drop them into the collection containers available at permanent sites. Around 70 percent of these clothes are of poor quality and have to be disposed of. For “La Trouvaille”, it is therefore very important that a high percentage of the donated clothes are of good quality so that they can be resold in the branches.

The joint solution

Potential donors were sent a collection bag as a PromoPost consignment. During the collection campaign, they could leave the filled bags at their letter box. Notified in advance, Swiss Post’s mail carriers picked up the deposited bags and took them to the delivery point during their normal delivery rounds or on the return journey. The result is impressive: more than 50 percent of the clothes collected in cooperation with Swiss Post could be resold in the second-hand shops. The response of the public to the collaboration between the Swiss Red Cross and Swiss Post was extremely positive.

Easy collection of second-hand goods

Starting position

There is currently a discernible trend towards second-hand goods, for example from Brocki. With “brocki.ch”, the Salvation Army operates various second-hand shops in Switzerland. To offer a varied range of goods, it depends on regular donations. To ensure that they can be successfully sold on, the donated goods must also be of good quality. Up until now, donors have brought their second-hand goods to a Salvation Army branch themselves, which involves a certain amount of effort on their part and often constitutes a hurdle to passing them on.

The joint solution

There’s an easier way: in the course of several tests, the Salvation Army provided private households with a bag that could be filled with up to 5 kilograms of second-hand goods (clothes, shoes, media or household items) and then conveniently left next to the household’s private letter box. Swiss Post’s mail carriers collected the bags on their normal delivery rounds and took care of transporting them back to the Swiss Post delivery point, where the second-hand goods were handed over to the Salvation Army (brocki.ch). With this solution, the Salvation Army has opened up a new gateway to donated goods without having to establish its own logistics network. Its donors for their part were given a convenient way to dispose of their second-hand goods, thereby making a contribution to sustainability.

Easy home delivery of books

Starting position

Although our society continues to become more and more digital, there is still a demand for books and physical media. At the same time, customers want anytime, anywhere, on-demand solutions for easy access to books. Against this background, the public libraries in Aarau and Basel were looking for a new sales channel that would allow them to meet the need for more flexible borrowing of books and media, and provide them to their customers quickly and easily.

The joint solution

Working together with the Aarau and Basel public libraries, Swiss Post launched a regional home delivery service for books and other media that allows customers of the libraries to order books conveniently, either online or over the phone. The libraries deliver the books, packaged and addressed, to a central Swiss Post point of contact in the region, from where Swiss Post’s mail carriers deliver the media to recipient customers’ letter boxes the next day on their normal delivery rounds.

If required, customers of the Aarau public library can place borrowed books back in their letter boxes to return them conveniently. On delivery, the customers receive a collection set with an address label and a tab for their letter box. With this solution, the Aarau and Basel public libraries are creating a new, innovative sales channel for themselves and at the same time making the lives of their customers easier.

Oven-fresh aroma from the letter box

Starting position

You can get bread at motorway service stations, there are shops at petrol stations or kiosks at train stations. While this may be convenient, the quality of these baked goods is not always the best. Many people are mad about the lovely smell of oven-fresh bread from their local bakery. But in our hectic everyday lives, we often don’t have the time to pop into the bakery.

As a result, regional bakeries miss out on sales. They don’t reach regular and new customers as well as they might. Market potential is not exploited, as consumers don’t even go to their local bakery because they don’t have the time or won’t make the effort.

The joint solution

If customers don’t go to the baker, the baker will go to the customer. “Brot-Post” is the bread home delivery service offered by Swiss Post together with various local bakeries in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland.

Customers can easily order their rolls or pastries online with a flexible subscription or as an individual order. The products are baked overnight, sent to the delivery point in the region early in the morning and placed in the storage compartment of the private letter box on the same day by Swiss Post’s mail carriers on their regular rounds – just as fresh as the products in the village bakery. Orders can be flexibly adjusted up to the day before on the customer portal.

To keep the amount of administrative work for bakeries to a minimum, an online application is available for managing customer data, displaying production lists and generating address labels.

Fresh from the farm directly to the customer

Starting position

Farms and speciality shops are increasingly looking for alternative sales channels with a view to expanding their direct marketing. They want their products to reach more customers quickly and easily. At the same time, more and more people are making a point of buying regional vegetables, fruit or eggs in season, preferably directly from local producers. For a society with environmental values, short transport routes and local sourcing today constitute important selling points.

But not everyone is willing to head off to the nearest farm; some would prefer convenient delivery directly to their home. For farmers, the coordination and implementation of these home deliveries can take a lot of effort. In this area, Swiss Post offers a smart solution.

The joint solution

The “Regional product delivery” service gives farms and speciality shops a new way to sell their regional and seasonal products. Swiss Post facilitates this by making use of its dense logistics network, taking care of local delivery of ordered goods to the customers of the farms. The farmers decide whether they bring their products early in the morning to their Swiss Post branch themselves or whether their mail carrier picks them up from the farm. Either way, the fresh products are delivered to customers on the same day on the regular rounds.

This means that vegetables, fruit and other products are delivered to their destination fresh – and it’s affordable, environmentally friendly and direct. The end consumers then leave the empty reusable containers in their letter box, and Swiss Post’s mail carriers take them back to the delivery point, where they can be reused for the next delivery.

“Swiss Post has really eased our workload. Thanks to their logistical support, we’ve been able to quickly tap into new customer groups and also grow our business,” says vegetable farmer Carina Rohner, from the Rhine Valley in St. Gallen, commenting on the collaboration.

More time for the core business

Starting position

In practically every company, the daily workload associated with postal activities is high: in the morning, somebody from the company has to collect its business mail in person from the business counter at the Swiss Post branch or from the P.O. Box facility. The items then have to be sorted, registered in some cases and distributed internally, possibly to several business locations.

In the course of the day, there is then also the workload associated with the processing of outgoing mail consignments. Weighing, sorting by format, filling out accompanying documents, addressing, packing, franking, filling into containers, and not least posting at the nearest post office are also time-consuming activities.

The joint solution

All of these activities can be outsourced to Swiss Post. Swiss Post offers tailored “Mailroom Services” with a wide range of service options for the physical mailing of information and goods – working for example together with the Hirslanden Cecil private hospital in Lausanne. In the morning, Swiss Post delivers their consignments to the Bois-Cerf and Cecil hospital locations. Daily newspapers are also delivered to both locations, and unsold newspapers collected. In the afternoon, Swiss Post takes care of all parcel and letter mail at the Cecil hospital. Outgoing parcels and consignments are collected for example from the “Sterilization” department, franked and taken away for mailing.

Other services can be integrated if required, such as watering plants or changing printer cartridges, depending on the operational needs of the company. This allows companies to reduce the costs of their logistics processes while at the same time freeing up valuable human resources.

Cost optimization thanks to the end-to-end process

Starting position

There are electricity, water and gas meters throughout Switzerland that have to be read: measuring the energy consumption of their customers is how utilities secure their revenue. This is done using various different meter systems that are read manually or semi-automatically. Today, most utilities have their own staff to read their meters and operate their own infrastructure. Outsourcing of the meter-reading process yields a great deal of savings potential for these utilities.

The joint solution

Swiss Post’s mail carriers call at four million households every day, and they can now also read meters (electricity, water, gas) for utility companies on their daily delivery rounds. The readings are quality-controlled and sent punctually to the utilities for billing. The combination of Aveniq’s process and system expertise and the meter readings by Swiss Post’s employees creates an integrated end-to-end service, significantly reducing the outlays for utilities.

One important aspect of reading meters is data protection. The data is securely exchanged between the mobile devices used by Swiss Post staff and the servers operated by each of the utilities, and is stored in encrypted form on servers in Switzerland. The data remains in the possession of the utilities at all times.

Markus Schiesser, Senior Solution Manager Utilities at Aveniq: “For many people, Swiss Post’s mail carriers are trustworthy individuals – it’s great that they can read meters on their postal rounds.”

Sorting of promotional letters directly at the letter box

Starting position

How can companies combine advertising campaigns for existing customers with campaigns to attract new customers? Existing customers should be addressed personally and the relationship with them should be intensified. At the same time, an important aspect of the effort to acquire new customers is to appeal to them with an exclusive offer. And existing customers should of course not receive the advertising twice. This is where Swiss Post’s combined mailing comes in – for example in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The joint solution

Every World Children’s Day, UNICEF runs a fundraising campaign using Swiss Post’s “Combined mailing” delivery solution. Existing sponsors receive a personally addressed letter. Potential new customers receive an unaddressed promotional letter.

Swiss Post’s delivery staff then sort the addressed from the unaddressed items directly at the letter box, making sure that existing sponsors do not receive the item twice. Combined delivery optimizes print runs and helps save on postage costs. The purchase of expensive external address data is also no longer necessary.

For advertising with an “extra helping of attention”

Starting position

Advertising for products and services is consumed through various electronic and physical channels, whether on the screens in buses when commuting, on billboards on the road or on television and the Internet in the privacy of the home. In most cases, there is no genuine, direct, interpersonal contact.

With promotional mailing, the situation is usually the same. The physical mailing in the letter box is always in direct competition with promotional mailings from competitors. This raises the question of how the attention of recipients can be channelled more strongly towards your own mailing, and hence to your own products and services.

The joint solution

Addressed or unaddressed promotional mailings with an explicit additional benefit (voucher or gift) can be handed over personally by our mail carriers at the front door – in face-to-face conversation with the recipients, and with a spoken message defined by the advertising company. Delivery staff never act as sales people for the client, but rather as bearers of a message with positive connotations, ensuring that the mailing is given an “extra helping of attention”. Swiss Post discusses how the personal handover is to be made with the advertising companies in advance. Almost anything that a mail carrier can transport can be handed over personally – whether it’s a packaged consignment or an unpackaged item with additional benefits for the recipient.

Working together for the older generation and their families

Starting position

Who hasn’t been there: your grandmother, father or elderly friend wants to live independently at home into their old age. For the Basel Red Cross, it’s important to be able to offer people in the canton of Basel-Stadt the appropriate support with this, so that senior citizens improve their quality of life, receive good advice and do not suffer loneliness. That’s why the Basel Red Cross is conducting the “Red Cross PLUS” market test with Swiss Post as its logistics partner.

The joint solution

Swiss Post’s mail carriers call at every household on a daily basis. They often know their customers personally and enjoy a high level of trust among the general public. So it makes perfect sense for Swiss Post staff to act as a link connecting elderly people, their relatives and the Basel Red Cross.

The mail carrier calls to the elderly person’s home, hands over their mail in person at the front door and asks whether they need any advice or support with their daily routine. If the person expresses a wish for advice or support, the mail carrier passes the request on to the Red Cross. The Basel Red Cross then discusses what the actual need is with the person and arranges its own services, such as volunteer drivers, meal deliveries and household help from third-party companies.

After each visit, the mail carriers inform the relatives by e-mail that the elderly person has opened the front door, giving the relatives the assurance that everything is okay. The mail carriers do of course also trigger a message to the relatives if the door has not been opened. For the time being, the “Red Cross PLUS” service is a market test in the canton of Basel-Stadt, which was launched in October 2020 and is expected to last until the end of March 2022.

Early clarification of the items to be moved

Starting position

There are some 500,000 moves in Switzerland every year. The online platform MOVU provides its customers with offers from regional moving and cleaning companies. Interested customers fill out the relevant form online, providing information on the size of the dwelling, the furniture, the date of the move and the new address. Based on this data, the regional moving companies prepare an offer within 48 hours.

To ensure that the offer is correct, an accurate inventory is required. However, the customer’s furniture, for example, is often not inventoried in sufficient detail. As a result, the moving company’s bill after the move will be higher than stated in the offer. To avoid this, MOVU sends its staff to the customers free of charge before the move to assist them with the inventory.

The joint solution

Swiss Post mail carriers support MOVU by taking care of the inventory in synergy with their main activities – delivering letters, newspapers and small goods. All MOVU has to do is place an order with the local delivery staff, who make an appointment with the customer and take the inventory on the tablet provided. The data is then sent to MOVU and the offers are sent to customers within a very short time.