Using Route Planning Software to Take Control of the Last Mile

What do you do when your drivers leave for the day? Do you cross your fingers and hope everything works out? Or are you following their progress to keep your operations running smooth?

Without a smart route planning software helping you behind the scenes, most business would agree that it’s a guessing game. You might find yourself relying on phone calls or text messages to have insight into where your drivers are. Which can eat up a lot of your time, especially when you’re busy and focusing on other tasks.

Having the ability to plan your resources efficiently and then track them in real-time makes it easier for you to manage your route plans in one place. You can gain control with the added visibility and automatic updates – and contribute to improving the end customer’s experience. Access to data from the road, if analyzed at the end of the day, can give businesses a good idea on how the original plan was met.

Should You Invest in Routing Software?

When determining if it’s time to invest in route planning software it’s important to ask some key questions:

• How are you currently planning routes?
• What’s the average daily duration of routes per driver?
• What’s the average cost spent per route (fuel, idling time, mileage, etc.)?
• How are routes rescheduled and how are changes communicated to drivers and customers?
• How do you accommodate customer requests and desired delivery times?
• Are you concerned about driver accountability and behavior on the road?

The right software can help answer these questions and provide a wide array of benefits for every aspect of your business.

Planning

• Simplify your day and plan your routes in minutes.
• Be proactive and plan multiple days in advance (or fit in last minute orders on the fly).
• Know where drivers are and when they’ll arrive with Live ETAs (Estimated Time of Arrival)
• Get rid of the messy paperwork and stay organized by saving and storing details in the cloud.
• Gain visibility on performance and automate reporting.

Safety

• Coach drivers on safe behaviors to prevent at-fault accidents.
• Prevent overall vehicle misuse and possible theft with GPS tracking.
• Maintain insurance coverage.
• Instantly confirm driver location and status without picking up the phone
• Keep your drivers organized and reduce frustration.

Savings

• Increase ROI by 30% from day one.
• Extend the lifetime of your vehicles.
• Save on fuel costs.
• Minimize unapproved overtime costs.
• Increase driver accountability and productivity.

Benefits of All-in-One Routing and GPS Tracking Systems

If you’re planning your routes manually, delivering around time-windows, or balancing customer requests then route planning software is a good place to start. You’ll be amazed at what you can do when you move from pen and paper to the cloud.

With an all-in-one route planning and GPS tracking solution in place you’ll master your route plans, maximize productivity, and delight your customers.

So what else can you expect after you get started?

Drive Business Growth:

When you are ready to expand or add a new depot, you can easily run a simulation to gain a better understanding of what resources you’ll need in order to support the expansion. It’s like a  sandbox. You can run a scenario to see how many drivers you need to staff or how many orders/customers you need to be profitable.

Do More with Your Existing Resources

When you win more business, you don’t need to panic. You can easily balance deliveries among your drivers without batting an eye. In the click of a button, Route Manager has completed the task. Its plans are so efficient, that a typical business will serve up to 20% more orders each day with the same resources. Review complete analytics dashboard to analyze performance and determine if the plan needs to be adjusted.

Get Back Time

Planning by hand can take hours. Like magic, route optimization software can simplify your day and build efficient plans for your entire team in minutes. This will not only free up your time spent planning, but it will speed up reporting, improve communication, and give you fast answers (like where are more drivers? Has this order been completed?).

Stay Ahead of the Curve

With GPS tracking that’s layered on top of your route plans, you get the whole picture. Eliminate “blind spots” between what happens when a driver leaves an order and shares live ETAs based on real-time GPS location which is updated every minute. Plus, you can share “view only” access with your entire team – giving sales and customer support real-time visibility too.

Keep Customers Satisfied

You need to find ways to give your customers what they want – instant gratification and 5-star service. Route optimization software can help you extend your offerings with minimal effort. Now when customers ask for ETAs or request last minute delivery, you can meet their needs and go above and beyond for them. With real-time visibility you now have the data needed to give customers live ETAs, taking the guesswork out of figuring out when a delivery will arrive. This also means you have the ability to inform customers if a delivery is arriving outside of the originally scheduled window. Time is precious, vehicle location and driver status will cut down on guesswork and give instant confirmation.

Using Routing Software to Avoid Shipping Mishaps

Shipping accuracy and timing has become a top priority for consumers in recent years, as we move towards becoming an on-demand society. Mistakes in the shipping process can be costly for retailers, in 2017 the National Retail Federation predicted losses exceeding $333 million as a result of shipping errors during the holiday shopping season alone.

Not all hope is lost, routing software can help keep deliveries on track.

Just one poor delivery experience can severely damage a retailer’s reputation. A recent study by JDA found that nearly 80% of respondents would switch to an alternate online retailer following an unsatisfactory delivery experience. Delivery delays put retailers at risk of a potential loss of $1.2 billion each year. Leaving them walking on a proverbial tightrope between keeping profits up and satisfying the increasing demands of consumers.

Providing an on-time delivery may not always be possible, especially during the peak seasons where unexpected weather changes or traffic can delay planned deliveries.

However, this doesn’t mean customers need to be left in the dark, wondering when their delivery will arrive. Through a combination of route planning software and GPS tracking you’ll have increased visibility with Live ETAs. When armed with this data you can choose to send customer alerts through third-party systems like Twilio. Providing real-time updates to customers regarding delivery times allows you to meet their demands and increase overall satisfaction.

Looking to learn more? Visit our WorkWave Route Manager page for more information about our industry-leading route optimization & planning software.