We’re not just referring to getting from point A to point B when we talk about route management. It’s about making trips as efficient as possible.
With a route management tool, you’ll be able to save time, save gas, and make more money.
Table of Contents
What Is Route Management?
Route management is the practice of getting more production out of your field resources. Route management aims to reduce mileage and fuel expenses and make your delivery operations more efficient and productive.
Route Management Challenges
Route management is a complex process with many moving parts. It thus poses significant challenges, even to age-old companies and experienced managers.
COVID-19 has made route management even more complex.
We are now living in a delivery-reliant world, making it hard for businesses to navigate the challenges without any experience to rely on.
Below are some of the major challenges.
Too Many Routing Variables
Planning routes manually means considering a massive amount of information.
They include vehicle capacities, delivery time windows, driver availability, and service areas.
The more stops your drivers need to make, the more complexities you will face.
So, planning optimized routes using pen and paper or Excel sheets is nearly impossible. It is too time-consuming and too prone to mistakes, which could lead to wasted time and money.
Route planning on Google Maps cannot help either because they are not designed to plan multi-stop routes for multiple drivers.
Learn the secrets of Google Route Optimization.
Lack of Agility
Another problem with manual route planning is that you cannot pivot immediately when an unanticipated situation arises, such as sudden weather warnings.
You can also not inform your field reps in real-time about such changes. And when you do inform them, they have to identify which route to take, which is time-intensive.
Keeping the Expenses Low
According to the American Transportation Research Institute report, around 56.5% of all trucking expenses in the US come from fuel and driver wages.
Keeping these costs to a minimum and maintaining a healthy profit margin is one of the biggest challenges of route management.
Want To See For Yourself How Route4Me Can Boost Your Profits?
The Benefits Of Route Management Software
A route management tool has many advantages.
The cost savings from route management systems could be over 13% in vehicle utilization and 12% in profitability.
Also, it could mean a 15% decrease in travel time.
Let’s look at the several benefits of using the best route management software.
Helps Plan Well-Optimized Routes
Route management software helps you plan 100% accurate multi-stop routes with driving directions for delivery drivers in just 30 seconds.
The software even factors in weather, traffic congestion, roadblocks, vehicle capacity, delivery time windows, and other constraints to ensure your drivers do not face any difficulties on the road and make on-time deliveries every time.
Learn how to plan a route with multiple stops in 30 seconds.
Helps Make More Deliveries
A route management system ensures your drivers get a balanced workload. So, none of your drivers will be overworked or underworked.
Also, your drivers will get well-optimized routes which means your drivers can make more stops without stretching themselves and working overtime.
Makes Customers Happy
Customers love transparency. According to a research report, “Full Visibility” tops the chart of customers’ delivery expectations.
Advanced route management software like Route4Me comes with a customer portal that enables customers to track their parcel en-route.
Also, the Route4Me route planner offers a customer alerting and notification feature that enables you to notify your customers through email and SMS whenever their parcels are nearby.
So, your customers can self-serve themselves with the information they need, reducing the number of support calls to your customer service team.
Makes Your Drivers Happy
Optimized routes mean your drivers will no longer be frustrated over being stuck in unexpected traffic and failing to deliver on time.
Furthermore, because they can make more stops and deliveries, your revenue will increase, which means their income will also increase. This also makes them happy.
Life-Changing Features of Route Management Software
Dynamic Route Optimization™
Planning a route is a complicated math problem. In addition to determining the best directions to give your field employees, you also need to account for traffic, construction, customer availability, and many other factors.
This problem can take a long time to solve when you try to do it manually.
Depending on the number of customers you need to visit, it can take hours. And you might get the wrong answer to this problem, which would delay your field employees and upset your customers.
Routing optimization software figures out the answer to this problem for you.
An advanced route optimizer like Route4Me comes with Dynamic Route Optimization™ technology that can save you hours of route planning time, so you can focus more on other tasks.
You’ll be able to provide your drivers with more efficient routes, which means they can stay on schedule and keep your customers happy.
GPS Tracking
Not all route planners are equal. Before you invest in a route planner multi stop, make sure that it has built-in GPS tracking.
The biggest challenge to managing a field operation is that you can’t see what your field employees are doing.
Are they sticking to their routes and working hard?
Are they taking unsanctioned breaks and running personal errands while they’re on the clock?
You can’t see them, so how do you know?
GPS tracking helps here.
A commercial GPS tracker shows you where your field employees are and how fast they’re going. This tracking data is automatically recorded, so you can review it whenever you find a convenient time.
The beauty of tracking data is that you don’t even need to review it to positively affect your field employees.
When they know they’re being watched, they’ll behave better.
The best route management tools won’t require you to install expensive telematics devices in your vehicles.
They have an app that your field employees can download, which turns their personal mobile devices into a GPS tracker. That way, you won’t need to make a big investment in a bunch of hardware to see the benefits of GPS tracking.
Reporting and Analytics
You need to monitor your delivery metrics to make your operations more efficient and improve wherever it is needed.
Most route management systems have built-in reporting capabilities which help you figure out which areas need your focus to improve performance, cut down expenses, and increase profitability.
For example, Route4Me can help you monitor the following metrics:
- Distance (Planned vs. Actual)
- Stops (Planned vs. Visited)
- Time (Planned vs. Actual)
- Routes per Day
- Average Time On Site vs. Allocated Service Time
- Stops per Day (Planned vs. Visited)
- Total gas cost
- Average trip gas cost and more.
Geofencing
Geofencing involves placing virtual perimeters around the locations of your customers. Then, whenever your field employee crosses through the perimeter, a notification is sent to the dispatcher and the customer.
This gives the dispatcher another way to evaluate field employee performance, and it gives the customer a quick heads up before your field employee arrives. They’ll appreciate the notice!
Learn in detail what geofencing is and how it can help you automate your delivery logs.
Territory Mapping
It doesn’t make any sense to send your field employees back and forth across your entire service area.
advanced delivery routing software comes with a territory mapping feature that allows you to carve up your service area into different territories and assign a field employee to each territory.
Your team will be more efficient when each set of stops is closer together.
What Is the Best Route Management Software?
We strongly believe that Route4Me is the best route management software available.
Our Android and iOS route planner would not have been downloaded over 2 million times if it had not been.
At Route4Me, our team strives every day to ensure our customers get the best route planning and scheduling solution.
With key features like Dynamic Route Optimization™, Predictive Weather Route Optimization™, Predictive Traffic Route Optimization™, real-time route re-optimization, and GPS tracking, our multi-stop route planner stands out from other route optimization software.
But do not just take our word for it; go to any search engine and read the reviews from real customers. You will quickly realize why Route4Me is the best route planner.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Route Management
Why is Route Management important?
What are the benefits of route planning?
- Customer Satisfaction
- Happy Drivers
- Reduced Transportation Costs
- Reduced Risk of Accidents
- Increased Productivity
- Business Expansion
- And More!
How does route management software handle last-minute changes?
How does route management software improve customer satisfaction?
What type of businesses benefit the most from route management software?
Conclusion About Route Management
You might now have a decent idea of what route management is, the advantages of route management software, and how to choose the best route planner.
Clearly, using the right route management system makes your delivery or field operations more efficient.
So, if you do not use one yet, you should now have a good idea of why you should go for one and what to look for in your future app.
Using the right route management software and technology will be invaluable in your overall delivery service and fulfillment strategy.
So, do you have any questions about route management or route management software? Please feel free to leave your comments below.
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