Take control of your day with a smarter, more dependable route plan. Learn how you can leverage route optimization software to enable more efficient route deliveries for your field service business.
Your route plans hold a lot of weight for your field service business – not only do they impact your employees, but they are critical to providing a positive customer experience. It can be challenging to build the perfect route that meets all of your requirements while allowing you to run a profitable business. But, with the right technology and processes in place, it can be done!
It can be challenging to build the perfect route that meets all of your requirements while allowing you to run a profitable business. But, with the right technology and processes in place, it can be done!
If you’re looking to save time, use fewer resources, and have real-time updates – combining route planning and GPS tracking can help you accomplish your goals. WorkWave Route Manager provides you with the ability to plan, route, track, communicate and analyze all from one easy-to-use solution. Just upload your orders, dispatch the approved plan to your drivers through their mobile app, follow progress with live GPS tracking, and when your drivers are done you can analyze the delivery effectiveness results. It’s an all-in-one solution that gives you flexibility, visibility, and control.
When you’re ready to reevaluate the way you plan your delivery route efficiency, you’ll quickly see the benefits of on-time arrivals, productive employees, and satisfied customers. Here are seven ways you can instantly increase your delivery efficiency with dynamic route planning technology and optimization.
1. Set Priorities
An easy way to organize your day is to set order priority. By doing this, you can identify certain customers or stops that must be served based on an order’s importance or the specified calendar date.
By defining the order’s priority, you are letting the algorithm know what must be included in the route optimization. Or, on the flip side let orders get pushed to another date if you run into resource constraints.
WorkWave Route Manager can easily work around your rules, so if you have some flexible stops or multiple stops, by placing a “low” priority or a later “serve by” date – orders can be added to future dates – allowing you to schedule what’s a priority today.
2. Stick To Your Commitments
Today’s customers demand transparency and are more concerned with companies delivering during promised time windows than they are with delivery time. If these customer demands can not be met, businesses run the risk of damaging their reputation.
WorkWave Route Manager’s routing algorithm will always assign the right order, to the right resource, at the right time. As a result, you’ll increase your accuracy, precision, and reliability.
By accounting for “time windows” within your route plans you can keep customers happy by meeting your commitments. WorkWave Route Manager’s routing algorithm will always assign the right order, to the right resource, at the right time. As a result, you’ll increase your accuracy, precision, and reliability. You can leverage our APIs that integrate planned routes with your order management system or upload your list of orders to allow our software to generate route plan recommendations on your behalf based on your noted time windows.
3. Leverage Your Drivers’ Input
You might be attacking each day using your knowledge. But, it’s a good idea to check in with your drivers and use their insight as well. Here are just some ways you can improve delivery performance and your future route plans by getting feedback from your team:
- Identify traffic bottlenecks that are always a problem and peak times.
- Become aware of customers who tend to throw off delivery schedules and need more time added per stop.
- Inquire if there are start/end location requests so that you can build in locations to the plan and offer job flexibility
- Assign areas to specific drivers if they are more familiar with certain neighborhoods and can get around easily.
4. Minimize Wasted Space and Time
If you need to make adjustments to routes, you want a solution that gives you control and flexibility. Move delivery orders around with the drag-and-drop feature, swap and optimize routes between vehicles, or re-optimize delivery schedules easily. Not only can you make changes on the fly, but you can review the impact before you “approve and dispatch” changes to your drivers. The route summary allows you to quickly visualize any violations and calculate the new cost for your routes.
6. Minimize your chance of error
Delivering the last mile is challenging and at times you may feel like the “jack of all trades.” You juggle driver performance, put out warehouse fires, solve spikes in customer service calls, and more. With so much going on, you can rely on route optimization technology to help you avoid mistakes from happening and focus on higher priorities. Here’s how route planning software can help you get ahead – without worrying about issues:
- Give your field service team read-only access to check-in on driver location, completed stops, and proof of delivery
- Set exceptions (like vehicle maintenance days or holidays) and never plan for unavailable days or resources
- Define rules in Route Manager and the algorithm will never violate them unless you override them
7. Reduce paperwork and guesswork
Whether you want to keep your drivers or office staff organized, the WorkWave Route Manager delivery management software can help you stay connected. With visibility into updates from the road, you don’t have to play phone tag or rely on instincts for efficient delivery. Maintain visibility on updates like order completion, current or previous GPS location, or live ETAs.
Customers like Recker & Boerger have seen an increase in communication by leveraging the Route Manager 360 app. It helps record arrival/departure, proof of delivery, and performance metrics through the complete route analytics dashboard. Plus, when you step away from your desk you can check in on drivers with access to WorkWave: GPS Track to view live locations and confirm what triggered any alerts.
If you are looking to take charge of your logistics with smarter, more dependable route planning, you’re on your way to making better, data-driven decisions to keep your day moving without any disruption. WorkWave Route Manager provides you with the ability to plan, route, track, communicate, and analyze all from one easy-to-use solution.
