Swiss Post Transforms its Services with IoT and LoRaWAN®

Carrying out postal transactions at people’s front doors

Nowadays, more and more competitors have come into the postal landscape during the past few years, obliging competing companies to up their game, having to offer the best service possible, including fast deliveries, lower prices, and exceptional service. Swiss Post makes sure to stay ahead of the game. Also, the postal Services Act issued recently, requires Swiss Post to ensure access to a basic universal postal service to citizens in all areas of the country, making the need for effective delivery in unpopulated areas crucial.

To solve these challenges, Swiss Post created a four-year business strategy in which digital development was required.

400,000 Swiss households now do their postal business conveniently at their doorstep with the home delivery service. Swiss Post has now digitized this service and, in addition to an online solution, is also providing its customers with a new “order pen” – with a button that has it all.

Anyone who lives in a community with home service and has previously done their postal business with a clipboard will have two options in the future: Customers with a digital affinity can place their orders using their smartphone, tablet or PC. In turn, customers who do not want digital services can use the new order pen – the SmartButton. Although it is not connected to the internet, it is highly innovative. With this option, Swiss Post is responding to the different customer needs in the population.

The mail carrier is ordered at the push of a button

Swiss Post came up with a perfect solution of the Internet of Things era – the Smart Buttons: battery-operated LoRaWAN®-connected devices, which incorporate Semtech’s LoRa transceivers and optical identification code (OID Codes), Learn more about it on Semtech’s white paper, in order to optimize the postal service ordering process by allowing people to place orders for postal supplies and services in the easiest possible way, through just one click. A solution which especially benefits villages lacking postal office branches.

Swiss Post assembled an innovation team which worked with Miromico, a Zurich-based technology services design company with more than 17 years of market experience designing hardware and creating tailor-made solutions for customers including IBM, Infineon, Roche, and Coop Group, and after several tests, the devices have proved to be very convenient, as they are easy to work by people who are not used to smartphones or ordering products online.

As a user, if you want to sending letters and parcels, order stamps, withdraw cash or pay bills – you can simply scan the right code with the pen and place the order. The postman receives a message straight away.

The order pen is basically suitable for all customers in a home service area who do not want to order home service with their smartphone, tablet or PC. In this way, you can carry out the desired postal transactions easily and conveniently at the push of a button. Neither a login nor a password is required. The order pen is very easy to use. The digital home service is sustainable because it eliminates the need for additional routes for the postman and reduces CO2 emissions are reduced. The postman receives the order message directly on the hand scanner and sees immediately whether a customer needs something from him. As a result, there are no more empty trips. Until now, the postman only saw this on the sign on the mailbox. And thanks to the accessibility, the solution is also fully available to people with disabilities.

Unlike competing order-on-demand solutions, the Smart Button reader does not need to be connected to a household’s Wi-Fi nor to be configurated, allowing users to use them without previous configuration. Smart Buttons run on batteries which can last up to 10 years, and don’t need any SIM cards. These devices also overcome one of the biggest challenges in this use case, connectivity. Smart Buttons can also reach up to 10 kilometers, eliminating the options of using Wi-Fi or 4/5G.