What makes a successful partnership?

We sat down with one of our customers to learn a little more about their experience with Purolator. Arnaud Bussieres, CEO of Clearly, joined us to chat about the Clearly brand, partnering with Purolator and how, as a team, Clearly and Purolator managed to find a solution to some last-mile challenges.

Clearly. Canada's leading online retailer of contact lenses and glasses.

A direct-to-consumer brand.

Clearly sells eyeglasses, sunglasses and contact lenses.

E-commerce driven.

While they have a few showrooms, the majority of sales are online.

Challenge

From Then to Now: The Story of Clearly.

Clearly is already a market leader in Canada, and the brand continues to grow. Arnaud Bussieres spoke to us about Clearly’s priorities. “We have one big dream for Canada – we would like to serve 37 million Canadians for their vision needs.” The biggest obstacle for Clearly has been the last-mile delivery, a common issue for e-commerce companies, particularly as they scale-up. The last-mile is the portion of the journey between a product’s hub and its final destination – which, in Clearly’s case, is the customer’s home. While an e-commerce company such as Clearly can do everything right for the customer’s experience online, once a product is in delivery, the control of that experience is in the hands of the delivery provider.

We have one big dream for Canada – we would like to serve 37 million Canadians for their vision needs

And that is the true challenge – it doesn’t matter how great an e-commerce experience is, the last-mile is the “make or break” part of a transaction. No matter how much time, money or manpower you invest, it’s worthless to a consumer if you fail to meet their expectations in the end. Arnaud summarizes the challenge for Clearly, “Just because the customer has bought a product from us, the story is not over.”

  • 2000
    Clearly launched as an online contact lens business.
  • 2010
    Began selling prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses.
  • 2015
    Branched out from pure e-commerce, opening a few physical touchpoints in Canada.
  • 2020
    Clearly continues to expand, while investing heavily in consumer innovation.

Solution

Solving the last-mile with Purolator.

Motivated to deliver the best customer experience throughout the buyer journey, Clearly remained focused on their customers’ satisfaction and happiness. Understanding that carriers have a key role to play in the last-mile, Clearly met with Purolator to discuss their vision – and they found it to be a strong fit. Soon after, Clearly partnered with Purolator to create flexible and reliable solutions for their last-mile.

Purolator has been delivering from day one on their promises. It’s very exciting to find a carrier strategic partner really aligned with e-commerce players.

With Purolator’s customer-centric delivery options, Clearly was able to provide their customers with a variety of delivery times that stretched beyond the standard. Evening and weekend deliveries were something that couldn’t be provided before Purolator, and it became a huge win for customer convenience. Another win for both Clearly and their customers was the reliability of meeting these delivery times. “Purolator delivers exactly when they say they are going to deliver and for customers, that’s an absolute must.”

Not only has Purolator been able to offer a flexible delivery solution, but with Purolator Your Way, Clearly was able to provide their customers with an easy and convenient tracking option. The new digital solution keeps customers informed throughout every step of the delivery journey via SMS notifications.

Purolator worked closely alongside Clearly to understand its customers’ needs and pain points and used any feedback to optimize the solution and enhance the tool for users. The convenience of push messaging empowers users to opt-in or out of communications via SMS notifications, avoiding the ambiguity often associated with emails and spam. This was a feature Clearly highly valued above other tools/methods of notification.

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Results

Clearly + Purolator. A Story of Success.

Since partnering with Purolator, Clearly has been able to improve its customer experience with more convenient and reliable delivery times. The extension of delivery hours has seen more than 50,000 orders delivered to Clearly customers during the evenings and over the weekends. “Customer satisfaction has gone absolutely through the roof,” Arnaud adds. And as a Purolator customer, Clearly’s satisfaction is also rewarding.

For other companies that are facing similar challenges, Arnaud shares his advice:
“Try and put back the customers at the center of what you do. What we’ve accomplished at Clearly, we always had it in our DNA. When you listen to your customers, you’re going to develop features and services which are spot on. Be customer-obsessed – you’ll drive a higher satisfaction and retention rate.”

“It's really an absolute pleasure to work with Purolator, they really listen to their customers. They’re so invested in our mission and in our ambition.”
Arnaud BussieresCEO - Clearly

Elevating Clearly’s customer experience with Purolator QuickShip™

“Once we understood their strategic objectives, our approach was to provide Clearly with a differentiated level of service in a highly competitive market. Our ability to offer customers’ evening and weekend deliveries was a significant game-changer. Clearly’s primary goal is to always elevate the customer experience and we were able to offer that through Purolator QuickShip™.”

Kavi Huliyappa, Senior Sales Executive, Purolator Inc.
Kavi Huliyappa,
Senior Sales Executive, Purolator Inc.