Sofia Fulfillment Solution for Ecommerce | Cubbo

Estimated reading time: 8 Min

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Benigno Pérez is the head of operations at Sofía, a particular app: it is a health insurance for which the most important metric is not how much it earns, but how much the health of its members improves.

An approach to its business model confirms that Sofía truly believes that health comes first: the app is designed so that you can, preventively, consult and avoid incurring major health problems that in turn end up being very strong economic blows for people. Sofía pursues a symbiotic relationship that is rare in the world of insurance companies: your health is their profitability, and that is why it does not squeeze its users with unnecessary medical treatments, as often happens in the industry.

Furthermore, for Sofía, keeping her partners - that's what she calls her users - healthy means keeping the business running efficiently. It's a win-win. But you're probably wondering: And what does Cubbo have to do with a health insurance app? Well, Sofía is also exceptional in the way she relates to her partners and Cubbo has become her main ally in getting her philosophy and message across. This is her story!

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How was Sofia born?

Benigno: I am not one of the founders of Sofía but I can tell you a little about the story as I know it: there are three founders: Arturo, Manuel and Sebastian. They know each other since the University where they studied applied mathematics and after that each one went to different places to study master's degrees in statistics.

They are very technical people. Arturo worked in a private equity fund called Index Ventures, then Sebastián worked at Google for several years working on the technical side of the product and Manuel went to work at Patreon, where he spent several years and that was where he learned the subject of coding.

Arturo, within the companies he saw in his work, realized that there was a great opportunity in the world of health in Mexico, because here the health industry is quite broken and the quality of services is less than excellent. That's how Arturo invited Manuel and Sebastián to join the project and that's how Sofía was born.

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At the company level, how could we understand Sofía?

Benigno: Sofía seeks to have a true positive impact on the health of Mexicans and does so through an insurance format. Here, the issue of how the healthcare industry aligns its incentives is key. In Mexico, the health industry has the incentive to treat you a lot, to charge you a lot. This often means that there are treatments that are not necessary.

We, as an insurance company, have incentives aligned with the patient: if the patient is better and receives the treatments they really need, the company also executes the medical actions and costs that are truly necessary.

This is Sofía's great achievement at the concept level: Our interests as a company and the interests of our clients, of the patients, are the same. I don't want you to undergo a thousand different treatments to continue taking money from you, as a private clinic would sometimes do. We want things to be done right the first time. Sofía was born from the need to improve the way people take care of their health.

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Read also: Cherish, entregas discretas, a tiempo y perfectas

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At the product level, is Sofia an application?

Benigno: It's an app, yes. That's the way you use your health services. But technically it is a health company. We are a digital insurance startup, but the health part is more important to us.

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How is that?

Benigno: Our focus is not on the issue of insurance, that is the instrument: if you have a health problem, insurance will help you prevent that from also becoming an economic problem. But it is more important for us to be involved with you in your daily health journey. If you have a flu, we want to be there with you through that flu. We want to avoid, prevent and always keep you at your best and in good health. And it is logical, because I repeat, our incentives are aligned with yours: you want to have good health and a good quality of life and we want you to have it because that also makes our business profitable and viable. It is a symbiotic relationship.

We focus a lot, for example, on prevention and timely detection issues. Which, again, is also what is constantly recommended by professionals in terms of health: being attentive to our state of health and addressing problems before they become problems.

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Do you operate only in Mexico?

Benigno: Yes. To operate with Sofía we had to obtain an insurance license. That is a complex procedure that, on the one hand, is an obstacle for many things, including being able to sell outside of Mexico, because in each country you have to do the equivalent procedure again.

But it is also an entry barrier that helps us, because not everyone can start or work in this industry and to a certain extent, it is very logical that this requirement exists due to safety and quality issues within the same industry. In the future, we want to get certified in other countries in the region and continue expanding.

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And how has the reception been in the Mexican market?

Benigno: Well, look, working on the issue of health and insurance in Mexico is complex for several reasons. First, it is a country where people tend to self-medicate a lot, going to the pharmacy doctor, ignoring their health problems until it is too late, using all the home remedies you want, so it has been difficult for us to give that message of “use Sofia, because it is much better to have a professional, a real doctor, on your phone.”

But once they try it and see the convenience it offers, the immediacy of having the doctor there in the palm of your hand, they love it. And that is where we have the most volume of use, in simple things such as a video consultation that the person makes with their internists in Sofia.

And then when more complex things come like hospitalizations, we have had exceptional feedback from our partners, that's what Sofia users call it, because we really believe that we are partners and work as a team, so the reception has been very good.

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How can an insurer be linked to a fulfillment company? How do you get to Cubbo and what is the link?

Benigno: One of the things we want to do very differently is change the way you relate to your insurance. Typically, insurance is a purchase you make and if you don't use it, that's good news. It exists, but it's there in the back of your head.

We don't want that. What we want is to be close to you, on your mind constantly so that, any time you need us, you look for us. And this also allows us to be closer to you in a more proactive way and be able to help you identify risk factors for your health and recommend options that can help you prevent.

To do this, to generate that link, we believe that a fundamental thing is to send you a welcome kit. May you see from the beginning that this is a different relationship, that we are partners and that we are a team to improve your health. Not just something you turn to in an emergency.

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Is that welcome kit something that defines you?

Benigno: Yes. We do not want to be put in the same group as traditional insurers. That is why the welcome kit is so important, because it means showing our proactivity from the beginning and starting to build that relationship of trust with the partner, so that they see that this is different.

Furthermore, this welcome kit brings you immediate satisfaction, it shows you value from the moment you start. And it's not that you are going to find some band-aids or aspirin in the welcome kit, no, what we send you is material to welcome you, so that you understand Sofía's philosophy and so that you can get the most out of our services; It brings a step tracker, a face mask, some stickers and other materials designed to make you feel like you are entering a service that cares about you and wants to be close to you.

We arrived at Cubbo because we had another parcel service and the truth is, it was not working, then the number of shipments began to exceed them and one important thing for us was that the shipment worked by itself, that we sent the order and did not have to do anything else; This did not happen with the previous parcel company.

So we started looking for alternatives and they recommended Cubbo and another additional alternative. The topic of the recommendation came from my wife who is very involved in the world of startups. And honestly Cubbo seemed exceptional to me because I am an engineer and I have an operational mentality, what interested me most was to have an operation that flowed, that worked well and in order, that was easy for us to integrate.

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How was the integration with Cubbo?

Benigno: In the first call I had with Cubbo I came away with the link to try the API, with an account created and the instructions to do the integration, which was super simple. From that moment we began to send them orders, supplies began to be supplied and everything began to arrive at its destination without problem. That's what we wanted.

Also, I remember that they opened a Slack channel for me with someone from engineering to help me with questions and that made everything very easy.

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What would you say is Sofia's great advantage?

‍Benigno: Honestly, we are worrying, first of all, about people's health. In my opinion, large insurance companies have lost that touch with people's reality. They worry more about “what do I finance you?” than for health. And in Sofia, from the beginning, everything has been done with doctors because the objective here, our metric, is the health of Mexicans. That for me is the most important thing.

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Are you looking for an ally that enhances your delivery process, compliance and customer satisfaction? Do not hesitate to contact us, we are the best fulfillment center for ecommerce in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, you just have to clickhere.

During 2021 in Cubbo:

Our clients recorded 21% savings in operating costs.

97.1% of the products received were processed and ready to sell within 24 hours.

We achieved 99.7% shipping compliance.

We recorded 99.9875% accuracy in order preparation, equivalent to 1 error every 8,000 shipments.

60% of our deliveries in CDMX were completed the same day.

We completed nationwide deliveries in an average of 1.3 days.

Just as Sofía found a key logistics ally to be closer to her customers, your ecommerce can also grow by relying on fulfillment in Mexico City, with fast operations, integrated technology, and same-day shipping that elevate the shopping experience.