How to Increase Productivity with Route Optimization Software

How Route Optimization Software Improves Driver Productivity
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What do you do when drivers don’t perform as well as expected? If you’re still planning routes by hand, you’ll find that you can increase productivity with the right route optimization software.

Whether you use software or not, some human error is to be expected. A few mistakes are fine – inevitable, even – but what abou0t when drivers just keep messing up, again and again, and again?

You only have two options: keep them on the team and try to teach them to be better, or fire them. Neither option is ideal. Keep them on, and if they don’t improve, their mistakes will continue to damage your reputation. You might even lose a customer or two.

But if you fire them, you must go through the costly and time-consuming process of searching for someone to fill the position, interviewing the best candidates, and then finally training the one you decide to hire.

There’s a third option, though, that allows you to avoid the negative consequences of those other two choices. You can keep the driver on but effectively train them so that they make little to no mistakes in the future. Route4Me route planner makes this possible. Here’s how:

#1 Route Optimization Software Gives Drivers Better Routes

If you plan your routes with pen and paper, there’s no way to know if they’re 100% accurate. Sometimes, you’ll make a mistake yourself and accidentally get your driver stuck in traffic or bad weather.

An iffy route can even get your driver into trouble with the law, as you might accidentally send them the wrong way down a one-way street or have them commit some other traffic violation. If your driver gets pulled over by the cops, your customer isn’t likely going to get their package on time (of course, that depends on how attractive your drivers are – who knows, maybe they’ll be able to bat their eyelashes out of a ticket).

Indeed – sometimes, poor delivery performance isn’t the driver’s fault. The dispatcher might be to blame.

To give drivers everything they need to succeed, our fleet route planning software handles all the complex decision-making it takes to provide your drivers with foolproof, optimized routes with total accuracy. No mistakes, guaranteed.

Our software will help your drivers find the exact drop-off locations they need to go to at large buildings. That’s right: we tell you not just the location is, but where, specifically, the package needs to go. That way, your drivers won’t get involved in a single time-wasting mix-up. 

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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!

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#2 Data-Driven Feedback

Route4Me’s vehicle route planning software comes with a GPS tracking feature. This is a great tool to increase productivity among drivers.

How does GPS tracking work?

GPS tracking helps you visualize your drivers’ activities on a map in real-time so that you can immediately know if a field rep or driver makes an unauthorized stop or takes longer than planned at a specific destination.

For example, are they speeding? Taking long breaks? Running personal errands on company time? 

With our software, you’ll know for sure.

If a driver is honest but still unproductive, you can use our software to go through every step of a route to see how they handled it and what they can do to improve.

#3 Auto Check-Ins and Check-Outs

Manually checking in and checking out trucks takes a lot of time. Geofencing, a feature included in our route scheduling software, automates the check-ins and check-outs at clients’ locations.

Learn what geofencing is.

Drivers don’t need to do anything. They’ll save time and be able to make more stops, which means they increase productivity and you make more money. This feature is especially useful if you have multiple drivers visiting multiple locations every day.

Even your least productive employees should be able to greatly improve their performance when you make the switch to route optimization software. If not, they’re probably not worth keeping around.

What do you think about route optimization software? Let us know in the comments section 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.

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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.