How Lems & Logistics Angels Eliminated Order Change Delays with Customer Self-Service
When an unsuccessful order editing app left Boulder-based footwear brand Lems and their distribution partner Logistics Angels struggling with order change delays, they knew their next choice had to be perfect. With thousands of packages shipped daily and lightning-fast fulfillment promises on the line, there was no room for another unsuccessful implementation.
The challenge intensified during Lems' peak sales periods when volume surged from thousands of weekly orders to 15x that volume during holiday seasons. "During sales, when there were both more requests and less people readily available to field any changes that come in, there would be things that delayed orders maybe for a day or so," explains Connor Robinson, who manages operations at Logistics Angels. "Our turnaround time is extremely tight, and it was something that we wanted to tighten up if possible."
The hidden cost of manual order changes
The problem's true scope only became clear when Lems' customer service team quantified their time investment in handling order changes. Robinson recalls the moment the numbers were revealed: "I did not see how big a problem this was and I kept asking for it to be quantified. When they got back to me with numbers, I was shocked at how much time the customer service team was devoting to editing orders."
The data was eye-opening: Lems customer service was spending 3-4 hours per week just on order cancellations and edits, with each change taking 5-10 minutes for simple requests or up to an hour for complex cases requiring warehouse coordination. During sales periods, order changes could surge by 10-20%, with 50-75% of requests coming after business hours when staff weren't available to respond quickly.
At Logistics Angels' distribution center in Hebron, Kentucky, the impact was equally significant. Warehouse leads spent 3 hours per week responding to dozens of order change requests while managing their primary fulfillment responsibilities.
"It's difficult to justify having someone sit at a computer waiting for emails," Robinson explains. "These are multi-purpose roles, and when workload demands it, email monitoring gets deprioritized in favor of fulfillment."
The worst-case scenarios occurred when change requests arrived after packages had already moved to shipping. "Sometimes the request will come in after the order is already sitting on the back of a gaylord or a truck somewhere," Robinson notes. "And then it's a matter of how important is it that this gets changed."
“Someone ends up digging through containers to find a single package. When you ship thousands of these daily, that’s extremely time consuming.”
The physical search typically takes 5-10 minutes per package, but if the hunt extends beyond ten minutes, Logistics Angels will usually ship the original package and initiate a return-to-sender process rather than delay other orders. However, for higher-value orders, they may extend the search time significantly. During peak holiday periods, when order volume spikes, these delays compound the problem.
First attempt falls short
Eight months earlier, Lems had tried an order editing app that failed to solve a critical integration issue. " The order editing application was failing to hold orders during the period of time while customers edited them," Robinson explains. After four months of failed fixes, it became clear the app provider lacked necessary technical expertise.
Testing technical expertise against the competition
Having been burned by their previous app's inability to solve a critical integration issue, Logistics Angels team took a different approach in their second vendor evaluation. Rather than wait to discover problems post-implementation, they decided to test each candidate upfront with their anticipated challenges.
"We were comfortable saying, 'Hey, look, here's something we're going to run into. Do you think you can solve it?'" Robinson explains.
Cleverific immediately distinguished itself from the two other apps they were evaluating. When Robinson presented this challenge to Josh and co-founder Andrew, their response was markedly different from the competition.
"Both were articulate and demonstrated they had specific experience addressing exactly this kind of technical challenge," Robinson recalls.
This wasn't generic sales talk - Cleverific's decade of Shopify order editing expertise showed through immediately. They understood how Shopify integrates with warehouse systems and the nuances of order hold protocols. While other apps made promises they couldn't keep, Cleverific could speak specifically to the technical requirements and had clearly solved this exact problem before.
The contrast with their previous four-month struggle was stark. Where the first app had repeatedly claimed they could "iron out" the integration issues, Cleverific demonstrated upfront technical competence that gave Lems and Logistics Angels confidence before signing any contracts.
“We were comfortable saying, ‘Hey, look, here’s something we’re going to run into. Do you think you can solve it?’ It was reassuring to interact with people who had experience addressing exactly this kind of challenge.”
Onboarding experience sets the stage for success
Both Lems and Logistics Angels approached the Cleverific implementation with cautious optimism after their previous experience.
The onboarding process spanned three preliminary meetings with Josh before transitioning to implementation specialist Laura, who would guide both companies through setup and testing. Robinson was immediately struck by the contrast with typical tech company interactions.
"Laura was on top of communication. No question was too stupid to ask her, which isn't always the impression I get when interacting with tech companies," Robinson explains. "A lot of times tech companies push you 4,000 pages of source material and say, go dig through this until you find whatever you're looking for. That was not the case at all with Cleverific. She went the extra mile setting up demonstrations and saying, 'Look, it works like this. Now you test it.'"
This hands-on approach proved crucial given their previous experience. Laura's proactive testing and demonstration gave both companies confidence that the integration would work seamlessly with their warehouse management system.
The onboarding process ensured immediate success rather than the gradual problem-solving they'd experienced before.
Day one results speak volumes
The impact was immediate. On the first Monday after launching Cleverific, Logistics Angels' warehouse team experienced something unexpected in their operations.
"The warehouse team showed up at the warehouse on Monday, and after about four hours of production, they reached out to the the customer service team from Lems , and they said, 'Hey, we don't have any emails, what's going on?'" Robinson recounts. "And the answer was, 'We don't need anything fixed, because Cleverific is taking care of the things that normally would have been an email.'"
Since implementation, customers have made hundreds of self-service edits, reducing the email volume that previously required constant attention. The shift freed up approximately 28 hours per month across both companies - 16 hours for LEMS customer service and 12 hours for Logistics Angels warehouse operations.
Robinson notes that customers are now making changes they previously wouldn't have bothered requesting, suggesting the old system was creating barriers that left many issues unresolved.
Preparing for peak season success
With the implementation complete just ahead of the critical holiday season, both companies are positioned to handle their highest volume periods more efficiently than ever before. Last year's holiday rush without self-service capabilities had overwhelmed Lems' customer service team with order change requests, many arriving after packages had moved to production.
This year, Cleverific's solution ensures that routine order changes won't create bottlenecks in either customer service or warehouse operations during their peak season surge.
“ We don’t just buy software — we invest in partners who understand logistics needs from the production to the consumer.”
For both Lems and Logistics Angels, Cleverific has proven to be more than a technical solution—it's a partner with technical expertise they can trust that preserves their competitive differentiation while reducing operational overhead and improving customer satisfaction across the entire fulfillment chain.
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