How A Cloud-Based Route Planner Can Take Your Field Operations To The Next Level

How A Cloud-Based Route Planner Can Take Your Field Operations To The Next Level

The benefits of using a route planner are obvious. It guarantees that all the routes you give your drivers are the most efficient routes possible. Your fleet won’t need as much time or gas to visit all your customers, which allows you to save a bunch of money.

Your drivers will show up on time more often, too. That’ll make your customers happier.

So, what’s stopping you from adopting a multi stop route planner right away?

Maybe you’re worried about the hassle of switching over to new software… well, don’t worry. It’s not as difficult as you think.

Adopting Route Planning Software Is A Piece Of Cake

Do you still plan routes with pen and paper?

If that’s the case, then yes, switching over to route mapping software will be a big change.

But this change is relatively easy to make. You can transition at your own pace. If you want, you can start small by testing out the software on a couple drivers before you introduce it to everyone. Or you can change everything immediately if that’s what you’d prefer. It’s up to you.

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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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It helps that most route planning software providers have dedicated training staff that will walk you through every step of the transition.

Also, it’s not like you need to buy new hardware. To access a cloud-based road trip planner with multiple stops, all your drivers need are the smartphones they already own.

The Benefits Of Route Planning Software

Using a route planner with multiple stops like Route4Me route planner makes your drivers more efficient. They’ll be able to visit more customers every day, so you can expand your business and increase your income without the expense of hiring new employees.

It doesn’t make any sense to send your drivers back and forth across your entire service area. Instead, you should divide your service area up into different territories and assign a driver to each territory.

A territory mapping feature allows you to do exactly that. Your drivers will be more productive when their stops are closer together.

Your route planner should have a GPS tracking feature as well. With GPS tracking, you can see where your drivers are and how fast they’re going in real-time. Whenever you want, you can check in on a driver and confirm that they’re sticking to their route and staying on schedule.

And when your drivers know they’re being watched, they’re less likely to slack off in the first place. That’s why vehicle tracking makes your drivers much more productive.

GPS tracking also makes geofencing possible.

Geofencing involves drawing custom borders over a real-world map. Then, you can set it up so that certain actions are triggered when your driver crosses through one of those borders.

For example, geofencing can be used to automatically send customers a text message when your driver is about to arrive. They’ll appreciate the notice.

Only Pay For What You Use

Legacy software usually has to be stored on your own equipment, which can be a headache to handle. Invest in too little IT equipment, and you won’t be ready for a sudden increase in demand. But if you invest in too much equipment, you’ll end up paying for stuff that you don’t even use.

Cloud-based routing software fixes that problem, because you’re accessing someone else’s servers instead of your own. You only pay for what you use, and if you ever need to scale up, you can do so with just the touch of a button.

Do you have any questions about route planning software? Let us know in the comments section below. 

Featured image credit : one photo/Shutterstock.com

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.