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logisticsLusaka, Zambia (operating across 6 SADC countries)

Quick Move Express

How a Zambian regional logistics operator with 80 vehicles replaced WhatsApp-based dispatch with a real platform — cutting WISMO calls by 60% and fuel costs by 18%.

“Our customer service team used to spend 60% of their day answering ‘where is my shipment?’. Now customers check the link themselves. The team got their afternoons back. So did our drivers.”
— Quick Move Express, Mwape Chanda, COO
60%
Reduction in “where is my shipment?” calls
18%
Fuel saved through optimised routing
94%
On-time-in-full delivery rate
Products usedLettsPOS Driver, Letts Trade, LettsOS, Letts Courier App

The before

Quick Move Express started in Lusaka in 2018 as a six-truck operation moving FMCG between Lusaka warehouses and shopkeepers in the Copperbelt. By the start of 2026, the fleet was 80 vehicles — a mix of 30-tonne trucks, 5-tonne distribution vans, and last-mile motorbikes — running daily routes between Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, the DRC, Mozambique, and Tanzania.

The operations stack hadn’t scaled with the fleet:

  • A WhatsApp group with 80 driver phone numbers
  • A whiteboard in the Lusaka dispatch office covered in route stickers
  • A spreadsheet for fuel reconciliation maintained by the financial controller
  • A separate Excel file for cross-border customs documents
  • Customers who phoned in 12+ times a day asking “where is my shipment?”

The decision

Quick Move evaluated four logistics platforms. Three of them were built for last-mile parcel delivery (Quick Move is bulk freight). The fourth was built for North American long-haul. None were built for African cross-border trade with a mobile-money-first payment culture.

Letts Commerce was different on three points:

  • Driver app + dispatch console + customer tracking link — one stack
  • AfCFTA-aligned cross-border — customs paperwork, HS codes, border-crossing checkpoints
  • Mpamba + Airtel Money + ZAR + ZMW + MWK + USD — settlement in whatever currency the leg actually settled in

Quick Move signed in February 2026. The cutover plan: roll the platform out one cross-border lane at a time over six weeks.

The 6-week rollout

  1. Week 1 — Lusaka–Lilongwe lane. 12 trucks, the busiest cross-border route. Drivers on the Letts Driver App; dispatchers in the console; customers got tracking links by SMS.
  2. Week 2 — Trade documentation. Every regular cross-border consignment ingested into Letts Trade with HS codes, tariffs, and customs forms pre-populated. Border delays at Mwami dropped from 4 hours to 90 minutes.
  3. Week 3 — Lusaka–Harare lane. Repeat of week 1, plus AfCFTA tariff routing for Zimbabwe-bound goods. Drivers loved the offline mode (signal drops between Chirundu and Harare).
  4. Week 4 — Distribution vans. The 5-tonne intra-city fleet onto the platform. Routing optimisation activated; the algorithm picked routes the dispatch team didn’t.
  5. Week 5 — Cross-border to DRC + Tanzania. The two more complex lanes. Cobalt-corridor and TAZARA trade flows configured.
  6. Week 6 — Last-mile motorbikes. The motorbike fleet onto Letts Courier App. Lusaka’s same-day delivery service launched two days later.

What changed

“Our customer service team used to spend 60% of their day answering ‘where is my shipment?’. Now customers check the link themselves. The team got their afternoons back. So did our drivers.”
Mwape Chanda, COO — Quick Move Express

Three months in:

60%
Reduction in WISMO (where-is-my-shipment) calls
18%
Fuel cost savings from optimised routing + load consolidation
94%
On-time-in-full delivery rate (up from 78%)

What the operations team mentions first:

  • The whiteboard came down. Dispatch is now a console view of the entire active fleet. Mwape can see all 80 vehicles, their status, and their next 24 hours of work in one screen.
  • Drivers stopped texting. Status updates happen by tapping one of three buttons in the driver app. No typing, no signal-dependent delays.
  • Customs at Mwami. AfCFTA-compliant paperwork pre-cleared electronically before trucks reach the border. Average crossing time dropped from 4 hours to 90 minutes.
  • The customer service team got promoted. Two of the three CSRs moved into customer-success roles for major shippers. Quick Move grew shipper revenue 40% with the same headcount.

What's next

Quick Move is adding a Tanga (Tanzania) hub in Q3 2026 to capture export freight from the Lake Malawi region. With Letts Trade already handling AfCFTA paperwork between every operating country, expansion is now mostly trucks and contracts — not platform.

Mwape’s parting note for African logistics operators considering the move:

“The thing nobody tells you about logistics tech is that the platform itself is 30% of the answer. The real answer is what your team stops doing. We stopped chasing drivers, stopped answering WISMO calls, stopped manually filing customs paperwork. We started running a freight company instead of a chat group.”

Products used

  • LettsPOS Driver — driver mobile app, offline-tolerant status updates, mobile-money payouts
  • Letts Trade — AfCFTA-aligned cross-border paperwork, HS codes, customs partners
  • LettsOS — fleet financials, fuel reconciliation, multi-currency settlement
  • Letts Courier App — last-mile motorbike fleet, same-day delivery scheduling

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