From FedEx and DHL to DPD and UPS, the world’s largest couriers are leveraging AI automation to revolutionise their operations, communication and last-mile delivery logistics.
But AI automation is also helping e-commerce businesses claw back compensation from couriers’ shipping errors.
We spoke to Claimit’s Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer (CTO) David Walker about why the courier claims process is ideally suited to AI automation and what Claimit’s platform does uniquely well.
After 20+ years in software development, why did you focus on the courier claims process?
I worked with parcel carriers as a client for years and often wondered about the logistics workflow from a technical perspective. After speaking to contacts in the e-commerce industry, I found out that courier billing errors were a common occurrence, so I started working on an AI prototype to detect them. When I’d finished, I shared the prototype with my e-commerce contacts and they asked: ‘can you make this work for lost and damaged shipments too?’ That’s when I learned how big the problem was for e-commerce companies.
Why is AI automation so well suited to courier claims?
As I started building the prototype, I was asked: why is Claimit a good idea now? I replied that it was a good idea years ago, but we just didn’t have the technology to build it.
As an industry, courier logistics is a complex mix of human and technological labour. Software cannot box and deliver a package. Humans cannot plot last-mile delivery routes for thousands of parcels. The same human-technology interplay is needed for the claims process. While software can spot duplicate invoices or input data into a claims form, humans are needed to understand what information is required for each different claim. But now, the deployment of Large Language Models and Machine Learning can cover most of that human decision-making – not just saving e-commerce companies loads of manual labour, but directly recouping revenue at the same time.
What part of Claimit’s automation are you particularly proud of?
Can I say two things? Number one, Claimit’s ease of use. The platform houses a huge amount of nuanced complexity, but is packaged in a way that anyone – be it a customer service agent or logistics manager – can understand and use intuitively. What’s more, it doesn’t require integration or retain any personal identifiable information (PII) data, so you don’t need to involve the tech team or data protection officer to get started.
Number two is Claimit’s network effect. Not even the couriers themselves have enough access to data to spot patterns in real-time delivery movements through all the hubs, customs ports, driver routes and sorting centres. But Claimit does. So we can help couriers take actions before something goes wrong and advise customers as to which couriers they should work with for specific items or routes.
How does Claimit spot potential shipping errors in advance?
We’ve set up 100+ data points for each parcel tracking number to predict if it’s going ‘off-piste’, such as the time of day, delivery route and even chosen courier service (i.e. express deliveries going to the wrong sorting hub). Once a tracking number has gone sideways, we can request the courier perform a manual check on that parcel, which either fixes the issue or reveals the parcel is lost. Claimit then automates the claims management process for that lost parcel.
So you’re not spotting them from your helicopter…
If only. I might be a helicopter pilot, but unfortunately I don’t have my own helicopter. I do have my own replica 1950s race car though, but that struggles to navigate a roundabout.
Want to learn more? Check out our CEO interview on the rise of courier claims
