CASE STUDY
Hanato delivers with Metrobi
Hanato loves to count on Metrobi drivers to go the extra mile to deliver their arrangements as they look in the pictures — and to save them time to create more unforgettable events.
Problem
“Hanato had one of their team members doing deliveries and it was helpful because she was on schedule most of the time. But then we found that having her have to go deliver when she was also trained as a florist interrupted the workflow. It was really great for when they had one or two deliveries every other day or something like that. But as it got busier, it would take her out of the shop for too long. They started using Uber as a supplemental delivery service, and sometimes the accountability and the drivers wouldn’t want to go the extra mile to ensure delivery was completed.”
Solution
“At Metrobi, Hanato has three to six drivers that we work with over and over again. It’s really great just because the drivers know their processes, and now they have a system for deliveries that helps the drivers to identify which bouquet is which, because a lot of the time people won’t know the difference between their arrangements. Metrobi goes the extra mile to guarantee their deliveries are successful.”
Events are really great, and whenever we do a really great event, that's beautiful. So I'm really proud of that. But also, just like, in terms of growth, I've done three Valentine's days now, which is a super high volume day for our retail business. And each time it keeps getting better. This Valentine's Day was our first Valentine's Day using Metrobi and it was one of the most seamless smoothest delivery experiences we've had for Valentine's Day. The year before we used a few friends and independent contractors, which was fine, but having the automated outreach to let people know the delivery window was extremely helpful, so nobody was surprised about when something was coming.
Metrobi has been a game changer for flower industry.
With Metrobi, you can save 23% on delivery costs, save 80% of the time from managing deliveries, and delight your customers with delivery notifications & tracking.
About Hanato
Hanato is a woman-owned boutique flower shop located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn serving the community and beyond. The local studio offers workshops and services for weddings and events. Eugenie brings over 15 years of experience to fulfill her dream of bringing people joy and beauty through flowers.
How everything started
Q: How did your business begin?
Ivan: “The company was started about five years ago. It was like a very small flower and plant shop. The current owner took over the company four and a half years ago. So we’ve been around for a little bit. Originally we just started off doing retail orders, and then we started doing delivery orders as well, but we didn’t have that many. Then the pandemic happened and that sort of reset the business. A large flower shop in the neighborhood closed, and because of that, we started doing a lot more delivery orders. So that’s sort of how it started growing, I guess. At least when I got here. Before that, it was just fairly small.”
Q: What do you think made Hanato successful as a business?
Ivan: “Practice and planning. Planning definitely makes it much more successful. Anything that we can figure out in advance and not leave to luck or in the moment is much better. I guess streamlining our processes through anything. We have certain steps that we go through when doing an event or preparing an order and making sure we follow all those steps helps in making sure that we’re successful with every event or delivery. It’s sort of the same process for each where we’ll plan. For example, we’ll secure an order for an event or an item like a bouquet. Then we’ll plan out what to do with it, as in plan the designs pick flowers, and then make it. ”
Save 80% of the time from managing deliveries and drivers.
Metrobi provides a dedicated operations manager that coordinates drivers on your behalf and solves urgent issues.
Hanato's favorite things about Metrobi
More Free Time
“So with the time that we don't spend texting our customers that they need to prepare for delivery to be out of the way or just organizing delivery routes and stuff like that, we've been able to focus even more on our event business. Every minute that I can spend and I and my colleagues can spend on preparing for an event or quoting for an event, anything like that is super valuable because that type of stuff is time-consuming, and can be automated through Metrobi.”
Proof of Deliveries
“We like the texting and confirming deliveries and honestly taking the pictures and having them available to send to the sender to say: ‘Hey, it actually arrived’. That saves us so much time. And it's time that we reinvest into our business to grow other aspects of it, which is great.”
Predictability
“It’s great to be able to schedule a driver to come when we need them. Once it was out of our hands, it was really easy to track people or track estimated delivery times because Metrobi offers that when you're looking at the route. So when people were asking we could give them a window as opposed right away, as opposed to in the past.”
How Metrobi works
“The whole experience is very personable. The driver comes to pick up, he gets packages into the van, and the van is dedicated to my products only. I can follow the delivery progress, driver location, and delivery pictures on the dashboard.”
