How Route Optimization Software Can Help You Plan Routes Faster than Ever Before

How Route Optimization Software Can Help You Plan Routes Faster than Ever Before
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Planning routes with pen and paper can take forever. Besides figuring out the routes your field employees need to follow, you also have to consider weather conditions, traffic, construction sites, time windows, and other variables. And, since you’re doing it manually, more often than not you’ll make a mistake along the way. So, the end result isn’t always pretty.

But, route planning doesn’t need to take that long. Route optimization software ensures that all the variables are taken care of for you and provides you with an optimized route to visit customers with driving directions from home in 30 seconds or less. You just have to feed in your customer addresses into the system, which you can do by copying and pasting the addresses or by importing or uploading a spreadsheet. Moreover, you can customize the settings according to your particular situation.

Below, we discuss the simple steps needed to plan routes using Route4Me’s route optimization software. Soon, you’ll be creating more efficient and accurate routes.

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Whether you want to slash the time it takes you to plan routes for your drivers, increase the number of stops they can make, or keep your customers satisfied knowing that your drivers show up on time… Route4Me helps you achieve that!

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1. Select a Start Date and Time

In the software, plug in the date and time for the start of your route

2. Select Your Field Employee

After selecting the date and time, you have to assign a field employee to the route. You can do this by putting in the employee’s email address or you can choose the employee from your Address Book.

As soon as you have added a field employee, any changes you make to the route will be sent automatically to his or her smartphone. So, you won’t need to call the driver to describe the new route as the updated directions will immediately appear on his or her phone.

3. Pick the Optimization Process

Pick whether you want the route to be for a single field employee or multiple field employees. In addition, you can pick where your route will conclude. For example, will it end where the driver started, at the final stop or at a specific depot?

4. Select Your Stops

There are a couple of ways to incorporate stops into a route. You can input the addresses manually, use a map to select the exact locations you would need for this purpose, or upload a spreadsheet with your customer information. The last option is the best one for most Route4Me users.

5. Click “Create Route”

For the last step, just click the button “Create Route”. Thereafter, you’ll have an optimized route.

 

 

Obviously, following all five these steps will take less time than tying your shoelaces.

So, how do you speed up your route planning process? Do you have any questions? Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Route4Me

Want To See For Yourself How Route4Me Can Boost Your Profits?

Whether you want to slash the time it takes you to plan routes for your drivers, increase the number of stops they can make, or keep your customers satisfied knowing that your drivers show up on time… Route4Me helps you achieve that!

Start Free 7 Day Trial

About author: Rahul Dasgupta

Rahul Dasgupta is a content writer with over 20 years of work experience. He holds a master’s degree in computer science and has written thousands of blog posts on route planning and scheduling, making it easy for readers to learn about these complex topics. Rahul enjoys playing tennis in his spare time and loves cuddling with his pet labrador Shinu. Rahul is a big fan of Roger Federer, Messi, and Bill Gates - he admires their drive to be the best at what they do and their philanthropic efforts.

Route4Me

About Route4Me

Route4Me has over 40,000 customers globally. Route4Me's Android and iPhone mobile apps have been downloaded over 2 million times since 2009. Extremely easy-to-use, Route4Me's apps create optimized routes, synchronize routes to mobile devices, enable communication with drivers and customers, offer turn-by-turn directions, delivery confirmation, and more. Behind the scenes, Route4Me's operational optimization platform combines high-performance algorithms with data science, machine learning, and big data to plan, optimize, and analyze routes of almost any size in real-time.