Delivery speed has become more critical than ever, thanks to the surge in online shopping and buyers’ expectations.
Faster delivery isn’t even enough. Superfast or instant delivery is the need of the hour. Grocery delivery companies like Gorillas and Getir promise to deliver groceries in 10-15 minutes.
Long story short, today’s customers want their packages to be delivered NOW or NEVER.
The competition is fierce. And you need to keep up with customers’ changing delivery expectations to stay in business.
So, how can you deliver packages faster than ever while keeping your wallet fat and happy? Keep reading to find out.
Table of Contents
What is Delivery Speed?
Delivery speed refers to how fast you deliver an item once a customer has placed an order.
Why the Speed of Delivery is Important?
Dispatchers are under constant pressure to guarantee a fast delivery time by reducing the days it takes to get a package from the store to the customer’s location.
The speed of delivery is essential because of the current business climate:
Increased online shopping: More customers are turning to online stores for purchasing household goods, clothing, groceries, and electrical appliances. According to a report, up to 88% of those buyers will continue to use online stores rather than brick-and-mortar businesses.
According to a survey by Deloitte, over 70% of online shoppers state purchasing from e-commerce sites is more convenient, saving them time and money. The same customers report getting better deals online. More online shopping means more deliveries.
Fast delivery expectations: According to Statista, Up to 40% of online shoppers prefer waiting two days for orders delivered via fast shipping. And 18% of shoppers are willing to wait to receive their products within 24 hours.
Big online retailers offer faster delivery times: Amazon leads the game by providing its customers with Prime Delivery. Prime buyers can now select delivery in two hours, same-day service, and one-day or two-day shipping when buying goods from Amazon.
Consumers don’t accept excuses: Only 21% of online consumers in the U.S. are willing to accept delivery failures or disruptions. Most shoppers simply aren’t forgiving or willing to accept excuses from online retailers for delayed deliveries
Want To See For Yourself How Route4Me Can Help Improve Delivery Speed and Deliver Packages Faster?
Whether you want to optimize delivery routes, increase the number of stops your drivers can make, reduce fuel costs, track vehicles and drivers in real-time, or keep your customers satisfied knowing that your drivers show up on time… Route4Me helps you achieve that!
How to Deliver Packages Faster?
Customer loyalty and delivery speed are ultimately the cornerstones of your delivery business if you want to stay at the forefront of your industry.
Here are some tips to help you deliver packages faster.
1. Optimize Delivery Routes
You can save significant time and money by optimizing delivery routes.
Plan your routes so that weather, traffic, or any other constraints cannot affect the delivery. Manually using pen and paper for route planning could be challenging. You will end up spending hours but still may be unable to plan the perfect route.
Therefore, adopt a route optimization software to automate route planning. Such software considers traffic, weather, sunrise and sunset times, roadblocks, one-ways, and more constraints that could slow you down.
The best route planners will take the headache of manually identifying the best routes for your delivery drivers. Plus, it helps you schedule deliveries in advance.
An advanced route planner like Route4Me also comes with several valuable features such as:
- GPS tracking to help you monitor your vehicles on the road and ensure they stay on schedule to make deliveries on time. It also helps avoid reckless driving and ensures driver safety.
- Customer portal to help your customers track their delivery status on their own.
- Customer alerts and notifications feature to notify your customers whenever their package is out for delivery or near their location and helps avoid failed deliveries.
- Geofencing automates check-in and checkout so drivers don’t have to carry paper logs, save time at stops, and make more deliveries. Learn what is geofencing.
- Geocoder that automatically identifies and rectifies any wrong addresses entered into the route optimizer. It ensures that drivers don’t waste time visiting incorrect addresses, which could jeopardize all the subsequent deliveries.
Learn how to deliver faster and boost delivery speed on routes.
2. Stick to In-demand Shipping Choices
It’s tempting to offer your clients a wide range of shipping choices. However, this can result in more confusion. Try to become known for being the best at what you do, and that is delivering goods reliably and fast.
Identify and offer your clients the most popular shipping choices. These include 24-hour delivery or same-day delivery. By limiting your delivery services to the ones most in-demand by online retailers and their customers, you can fine-tune your performance to perfection.
The benefits of sticking to in-demand shipping choices mean you can focus more clearly on all aspects of your business that can drive profits.
3. Hire a Reputable 3PL Provider: Outsourcing Fulfillment
Hiring a third party to handle parts of the delivery process has many benefits. Shipping companies often outsource to 3PL providers to streamline their transport and logistics processes. It’s often the most affordable way of ensuring you can offer your clients the most efficient shipping choices.
Using a 3PL provider limits the amount of time your company needs to focus on every aspect of delivering goods.
4. Look After Your Employees
While your drivers are the crucial link in your delivery process, you want to look after all your employees if you want to ensure secure and fast delivery of goods.
Efficient delivery speed relies on all employees involved in the process. This includes the tea lady who keeps your workers replenished throughout the day, warehouse staff receiving and storing goods, and drivers on the road.
Looking after your employees makes them feel valued and committed to your mission of offering the best delivery services.
Hiring well-qualified staff from the beginning is vital for improved workplace productivity. Learn the best practices for hiring delivery drivers.
Sending employees to ongoing training is also essential for keeping up-to-date with the latest development in your industry. An efficient workforce ultimately determines the success of your delivery business so take good care of your workers.
Delivery speed is more important than ever with e-commerce retailers offering their customers faster services. Running a delivery business entails factoring in more than having a fleet of drivers and vans. It’s about having all the right resources like Route4Me on hand so you can offer faster delivery than your competitors.
Want To See For Yourself How Route4Me Can Help Improve Delivery Speed and Deliver Packages Faster?
Whether you want to optimize delivery routes, increase the number of stops your drivers can make, reduce fuel costs, track vehicles and drivers in real-time, or keep your customers satisfied knowing that your drivers show up on time… Route4Me helps you achieve that!
