Logistics & Fulfilment Improvements

Overview

At Laced, CS volume was rising due to delays, fulfilment errors, and unclear buyer communications — and on high-ticket items, each complaint was expensive and damaging to repeat purchase. The problem wasn't that the CS team was slow; it was that operational gaps across the logistics chain were generating a steady inflow of avoidable contacts. I worked across Product, Ops, and Logistics to fix the root causes rather than just the surface symptoms.

The problem

Laced's order journey was complex. An order moved from seller dispatch to an authentication centre to final delivery — and each handoff was a potential failure point. Buyers had limited visibility into where their order actually was. When something went wrong (delayed at authentication, missing scan, slow dispatch), the buyer's only recourse was to contact CS. CS, in turn, was handling queries manually with limited tooling for diagnosing order status quickly.

The failure modes clustered in a few predictable places: sellers dispatching late or not at all, authentication centre throughput creating unpredictable delays, and delivery timelines that didn't reflect the real state of the order. Buyer communication wasn't triggered at the right moments, so customers contacted CS as soon as any uncertainty arose.

What I did

I ran weekly CS insight reviews to map which tickets were generated by which operational failure. I then worked directly with Ops and Logistics leads to diagnose the bottlenecks — visiting authentication centre workflows, not just reviewing data. The combination of quantitative (ticket volumes by type, step timing data) and qualitative (on-the-ground observation) produced a clear picture of where to intervene.

I shipped product improvements and operational fixes in parallel, because fixing one without the other would have left gaps.

Systems I built

• Full order journey mapping: documented the complete order lifecycle from seller to buyer with failure rates, CS contact rates, and delay frequencies at each stage — gave Ops clear prioritisation for where to focus
• Tracking event schema: defined the set of buyer-facing tracking events that needed to exist, including events that were missing from the current flow (authentication received, authentication complete, dispatched to courier) — reduced the silence that triggered "where is my order" contacts
• Proactive buyer notifications: introduced automated notifications at key moments, timed to reduce uncertainty before buyers felt the need to contact CS
• Authentication centre throughput review: flagged specific process constraints that were creating unpredictable delays; worked with Ops leads to redesign throughput at peak periods
• Operational workflows: rebuilt the internal workflow for handling delayed orders, including clear SLAs for when CS should proactively communicate vs escalate to Ops

Impact

CS ticket volume dropped 40% — a result of fewer operational failures generating contacts and better buyer communication at the moments where uncertainty previously drove inbound queries. Fulfilment cycles became more predictable, and alignment between product and operations improved as a structural outcome of the cross-functional working model we established.