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Why You Should Invest in Delivery Management Software
Customer expectations have changed.
According to a report, 45% of American consumers now expect their packages within two days, or they will look elsewhere.
In fact, half of the consumers prefer ordering online and pick-up in store on the same day.
But making same-day or next-day delivery is not easy.
You have to plan optimized routes, distribute the workload equally, track the progress, manage any unanticipated circumstances, and ensure all your drivers show up on time every time.
That’s a Herculean task.
That’s why you need delivery management software.
What Is Delivery Management Software?
A delivery management software is a platform that helps you manage core logistics operations seamlessly and make them efficient.
They include route planning and scheduling, work allocation, and vehicle and driver tracking.
It makes your delivery services efficient and your customers happy, saves time and money, and improves profitability.
Advantages of Delivery Management Software
Now that you have a good idea of what a delivery route planner is let’s find out why you should consider investing in one.
Mentioned below are six of the most important benefits.
Ensures Your Drivers Show up on Time Every time
An advanced delivery management software like Route4Me comes with Dynamic Route Optimization™ technology that helps you plan well-optimized routes with accurate directions to work.
The multi-stop route planner factors in weather, traffic congestion, time windows, priority deliveries, sunrise and sunset times, roadblocks, left turns and U-turns, and more constraints that could affect your drivers and could lead to delayed deliveries.
All you need to do is upload the list of addresses into the system, either in Excel, scanned format, or from your cloud storage, and then set some parameters. Once you hit optimize, you’ll have perfect routes!
The best part is that it’ll only take 30 seconds to get the fastest and shortest multi-stop routes.
Learn how to plan a route with multiple stops in 30 seconds.
Also, Route4Me eCommerce delivery management software comes with a pick-up and drop-off route optimization feature that helps you plan and optimize routes with hundreds of thousands of pick-up and drop-off address pairs, where the pick-up address from each address pair will always be visited first, and its corresponding drop-off address will always be visited second.
Imagine how much time all this would save you, which you would have otherwise spent planning routes using pen and paper.
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Customers Can Check Their Package Delivery Status on Their Own
Whether it’s food delivery management software or courier delivery management software, getting real-time updates on deliveries is something that every customer will appreciate.
The best delivery management software like Route4Me route planner offers a customer portal feature that enables your customers to check the statuses of their inbound deliveries on their own.
Customers can simply log in to Route4Me, using a tracking number or their Account ID and track the statuses of their packages.
But you maintain control.
You can decide how much information you want to share with your customers and give information-specific access only.
For example, you can show them driver identities, customer fields, estimated arrival times, and much more.
Reduce the Chances of Failed Deliveries
Route4Me delivery management software also comes with a customer alerting and notification feature that helps you notify your customers about their delivery statuses.
It’s up to you when you want to notify them.
For example, you can let your customers know when the drivers begin their journey or when the drivers are within 5 miles or 5 minutes of the customers’ locations.
You can also send email or SMS text messages with a tracking URL to enable your customers to track where the drivers are as they approach them.
The best part with Route4Me’s parcel delivery management software is that the tracking and notification will work with your contract drivers too.
Also, the Route4Me delivery route planner comes with the Next Customer Notification feature that automatically notifies customers when they are the next stop to be visited on an active route.
When your customers know when exactly their packages will arrive, they will make themselves available to receive the packages. This decreases the chances of failed deliveries.
Imagine the time and money you could save with first-time door opens.
Furthermore, your customers will be happy, and you will have high customer lifetime value (CLTV).
Here are 5 ways to improve first-time door opens in last-mile delivery.
Drivers’ Whereabouts Will Be at Your Fingertips
A delivery route management software also offers a built-in GPS tracking feature that lets you track your delivery drivers in real-time.
This is not only helpful in finding out if a delivery driver is idling or wasting time but also helps you know immediately if there’s an emergency like an accident or a vehicle breakdown during delivery.
You can then jump into action and resolve such issues within the shortest time, thus minimizing loss.
Route4Me goes one step further.
It even comes with a re-optimization feature that helps you reroute routes to ensure another driver nearest to the affected customer deliveries can still make the deliveries on time.
Cut Down Fuel and Operating Expenses
A delivery fleet management software can help you control your fuel and other operating expenses in several ways.
Optimize Routes
Optimized routes mean your drivers will not get stuck on the road and reach destinations faster without consuming a lot of fuel.
Learn how a route planner can help you reduce fuel costs.
Receive Speed Alerts
Speeding eats up a lot of fuel.
A route optimizer comes with a speed alert feature that notifies you instantly when a driver goes over the speed limit.
You can then immediately communicate with the driver to make him/her stay within the limit to avoid burning up fuel.
Access Reporting and Analytics
Home delivery management software comes with a reporting and analytics feature that provides you with all the crucial information you need to control your expenses.
These include how much fuel you have used, how much distance your drivers have traveled, and how many stops your drivers have made.
Other Features
There are many other powerful features delivery company management software comes with that can make delivery management seamless. These include the following:
- It comes with in-app voice-guided navigation, so your drivers never have to look down at a map on their phones (especially in low-light or high-traffic conditions).
- Geofencing automats check-in and check-out. Learn what geofencing is.
- The geocoder flags and auto-corrects any wrong addresses entered into the system.
- The driver breaks feature reduces driver fatigue and improves productivity.
- eSignature facilitates digital proof of delivery and avoids customer disputes.
- The Telematics Gateway enables you to integrate a commercial GPS tracker with leading telematics vendors so that you can track your existing vehicles on a map in the delivery itinerary planner.
- The Android and iOS route planner apps enable you to plan routes and track progress while on the go.
Multi-Stop Route Planner App
- It comes with an in-app address scanner that helps you scan the address on each package within minutes, suggests geocoded address options to choose from, and lets you instantly add scanned addresses to new or planned routes.
But that’s not all. Learn in detail how a trip planner can reduce your operating expenses.
On-Premise vs. SaaS Delivery Management Software
When you go for route optimization software, you’ll have two options to choose from. They are cloud-based or software as a service (SaaS) delivery management software and on-premise parcel delivery management software.
Below, we look at the difference between making the right choice.
SaaS Delivery Management Software
There are two main attributes of this software you should know about:
- SaaS solutions often function on public clouds and sometimes also on private clouds.
- SaaS companies generally sell the software in the subscription form (either to be paid monthly or annually) or work on a pay-per-usage model.
Once the service is acquired, you’ll receive access to the software by logging in.
Once you have access, you can enter and store data, plan and schedule routes, and do all other delivery management activities whenever you want. The provider will be responsible for managing and updating the system on the cloud.
Using SaaS route planning software is a cakewalk as the user interface is simple, the features are updated regularly, and, most importantly, there is better connectivity.
Also, since everything is done on the cloud, the software is flexible, agile, and scalable.
Here are seven reasons why you should adopt SaaS route planning software.
On-Premise Delivery Management Software
Providers dealing with on-premise map route planners sell the license of the software at a one-time cost.
The software is then installed on the servers, private systems, and other devices of the user.
Needless to say, the setup and installation charges, along with the cost of the software, make it quite an expensive option.
Furthermore, just purchasing the license of the software is not the end of your expenses. There are many additional things which go into the cost.
For example, there are investments for computing and server hardware, software security, in-house tech support, and system integration. Only once you have done all that, can your business benefit from the software completely.
Because of its huge cost, only large enterprises with deep pockets can afford this option.
Conclusion about the Benefits of Delivery Management Software
With proper delivery scheduling software, you’ll be able to manage your deliveries seamlessly, analyze your processes, and improve your customers’ experience.
You can do route planning on Google Maps find the shortest route and get delivery direction to drive.
But Google Maps is not effective if you need to plan multi-stop routes for multiple drivers.
With a multiple stop route planner, you can plan and manage deliveries effectively, know how much fuel you spend, track your drivers in real-time, and so much more.
Stand-alone free tools can only assist you this much. To grow your business further, you need to go that extra mile by getting delivery management software.
Look for the best delivery management software for your business that offers the above-mentioned features.
Do you have any questions about delivery route management software? Please feel free to leave your comments below.
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