Relay Technologies scales daily deliveries by nearly 7x seamlessly with Twilio
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Challenge
Delivery and logistics network Relay Technologies needed a communications platform that could scale with their rapid operational growth and constant network expansion without needing to be rebuilt or adding another provider every time the business grew.
Solution
Relay built its entire customer communications stack on Twilio from day one, using Twilio WhatsApp, SMS, SendGrid, and Voice to keep customers informed, reduce missed deliveries, and grow as an organization without the complexity of managing multiple platforms.
"As a startup, we want to go all in with Twilio because it’s the thing that’s going to grow with us. It’s already proven that it can scale."
Introduction
The same basic logistics model has underpinned parcel delivery for a long time: a distant depot, a driver covering a vast area, and a card in the letterbox if no one’s home. Relay Technologies was founded to create a better way. The company uses moped couriers operating out of local shops and offices for deliveries—individuals who are familiar with the nuances of operating within their own neighborhoods.
In three years, Relay has used that model to accelerate from a startup to an established business servicing approximately 25% of the UK population. This includes scaling from 15,000 to 100,000 deliveries per day in a single year. Backed by Plural, the investor behind currency transfer provider Wise, the company is targeting 50% UK coverage within the next year, with international expansion plans on the horizon.
Growth at that pace creates pressures, not least in customer communications. If even a small percentage of customers aren’t properly informed, Relay could face significant operational and reputational problems. Relay chose Twilio to solve this problem through a single, consolidated platform spanning email, SMS, WhatsApp, and voice.
From "Undelivered" to "Pickup Parcel" in 30 seconds powered by Whatsapp Flows
The most common friction point in parcel delivery occurs when the customer isn’t home. Traditionally, resolving this issue requires customers to use a clunky, third-party tracking portal to arrange an alternative delivery location, and most don’t bother to follow through. Initially at Relay, just 0.3% of customers who missed a delivery opted to redirect their parcel to a nearby collection point.
Relay’s solution was Twilio WhatsApp Flows. When a delivery isn’t successful, the customer receives a WhatsApp message with their two nearest pickup locations. When opened, an interactive flow launches, directing the customer to the nearest shop. There is no separate app or external portal, and the process takes around 30 seconds from start to finish.
“You open the Flow right in WhatsApp, you select the shop and then click complete,” says McHie. “It’s simple, it’s smooth—it’s as elegant as you can get.” As a result, the collection rate has improved almost eightfold to 2.3%, representing a superior customer experience.
Twilio ensured that this and other solutions would be more achievable and successful through dedicated support. Because WhatsApp Flows was new territory for Relay—and an integration that few businesses in the UK had attempted at the time of launch—Twilio worked alongside the team and with WhatsApp to help get it live.
“Twilio has been meeting with us constantly, answering all of our emails and questions,” says McHie. “It’s really important to have that partnership.”
"Twilio has given us the API tools to understand how effective it actually is. Is it reaching people? Are they interacting with it? Is it giving us the metrics that we need?"
Empowering Couriers and Reducing Support Volume with Twilio Sendgrid and Voice
For McHie, the measure of a well-functioning customer experience is the absence of noise. “I know it hasn’t gone well when my customer support team has a lot of tickets to go through,” she says.
Reducing the volume requires a proactive mindset, with McHie’s team analyzing frequent customer pain points and exploring standardized or modular solutions to address them.
Twilio SendGrid provides many of the capabilities they seek. Using dynamic email templates tied to specific parcel states, the team can send personalized, automated updates whenever a defined scenario occurs—such as a delay, an access issue, or a status change—without writing large blocks of code. Since implementing this approach, Relay has reduced its customer support contact rate by 50%.
The same principle extends to Twilio Voice API capabilities. When couriers encounter access issues, such as a missing door code or difficulty finding an address, they can call the customer directly through the Relay platform without revealing personal contact details. It’s a small integration with a direct operational benefit. As McHie says, “A better customer experience also improves the courier experience.”
"I’ve been able to reduce my team’s contact rates by half just by using dynamic email templates—if this happens with your parcel, send this email. All I have to do is write one small piece of custom code, and it’s done."
Looking Ahead: Conversational intelligence, RCS and Global Expansion
Relay is already expanding the solutions it has developed. For instance, McHie’s team is exploring Twilio’s transcription and translation capabilities to bridge language gaps across its multilingual courier fleet—converting voice notes into the recipient’s preferred language in real time.
Twilio RCS messaging is also on the roadmap, aimed at offering a richer, branded conversational delivery experience for customers.
The company’s plans for international expansion add another dimension. As Relay moves beyond the UK, the communications infrastructure it has built won’t need to be rebuilt or changed. Twilio’s global reach means new languages and markets can be switched on rather than engineered from scratch.
"Twilio is already international. Turning on multiple languages and multiple locations — that’s not even something I have to think about when it comes to integrating with Twilio."
