A Bump In The Road
Whether you are a small cargo business or a large fleet management company, optimizing ‘last-mile delivery’ operations is critical to ensuring profitability in the long run. Last-mile refers to the transport of an item from the local distribution center to the final point of delivery. Even though this part has the shortest routes of any part of the supply chain, without the right tools (hint: like our route optimization software!), these deliveries can be anything but quick and easy.
Furthermore, studies conducted on the freight industry show that last-mile delivery operations account for almost 53% of the total transportation costs! This is a challenge for small businesses with mostly local customers, because their operations become expensive.
The Need Of The Hour?
If this isn’t bad enough, unpredictable situations like traffic and last-minute changes can disrupt your route planning efforts. A lot of small businesses spend hours mapping their delivery routes by hand or otherwise using google maps, but are forced to keep changing the entire plan through the day. Since last-mile delivery can be inefficient, costly, and time-consuming, improving operational efficiency and lowering costs should be a top priority for any company that makes local deliveries.
Lowering the expenses associated with last-mile delivery, such as fuel and time spent in planning and managing delivery routes, is crucial in order to make your business more profitable. It will keep your customers happy, and stay ahead of your competitors. Technology like route optimization software attempts to solve the problem of last-mile delivery by getting drivers to the right places more quickly and efficiently. Route optimization algorithms can handle changes in route and bumps in the road much better than a human operator. Here are a few ways route optimization software can help your business:
- Increase revenue per driver and reduce input costs
Are you interested in reducing operating costs and increasing your revenue per driver? Then you’re looking in the right direction. Route optimization software will help you make optimal use of your drivers and reduce overheads. It can help you save without compromising on the quality of your service, or breaking regulations. It will also help you maximize the use of your fleet, allowing each of your drivers to complete more trips and increase revenue.
2. Expand your delivery radius without adding new people or planning resources
If you haven’t used route optimization software before, your team likely spends a lot of time organizing- and then reorganizing- people and deliveries on a daily basis. With our proprietary software, Fleetx will help you reduce that time from hours to minutes. It will also help you by keeping in mind several other factors like driver availability, customer availability, deadlines, holidays and more.
(Can you plan in advance? Then will include a part about long term planning). Solutions like ours can help you react to unexpected events and re-plan the whole schedule without too much effort. With all that extra time and resources on hand, why not expand your delivery radius and scale up your business ?
3. Improve customer satisfaction
In the age of the internet, customer reviews can quickly determine how successful a company ends up being. 90% of consumers used the internet to find local businesses in 2019, and 82% of those read customer reviews before making a decision. It helps to have a good reputation, because as they say: it precedes you.
If you want your customers to trust you with their money, you have to show them that you are worth it. With route optimization software, you can share real-time ETA, tracking and SMS/e-mails to convey delivery information. When your customers are happy, you know you’re doing a good job of running your business.
4. Distribute workload effectively and increase employee retention
How are you currently distributing deliveries among your drivers? Chances are that you are doing it geographically, where each driver has their own service territory. But, can you do better? Because some of your drivers might be dealing with a greater volume of deliveries than others, and will have to work regularly overtime.
Why not let the route optimisation software split the duties for you? This way you can split it evenly across the fleet and ensure that your drivers are not overworked. The happier your drivers are, the longer that they are likely to stay with you. This will save you considerable resources in training new staff and build a close-knit team.
5. Helps you adapt your delivery plans quickly
Last-minute changes to routes are inevitable, and it is a difficult task to try to make changes across multiple driver schedules manually. That is why dynamic planning — instant and automatic recalculation of routes to reflect real-world changes — is a necessity in 2021. Late orders, cancellations, drivers calling in sick, or customers requesting alternative delivery addresses are just a few factors that can ruin a well-planned schedule in a second.
When you are routing ahead of time, you must have the ability to re-plan and manage your fleet of drivers remotely. When a driver calls in sick, or last-minute orders come in, Fleetx’s route optimization software will calculate availability and assign the new jobs across your fleet depending on their current location, capacity, and route, instead of overloading a few drivers.
These are just a few of the ways that a good route optimization software can benefit your business. For businesses operating in some industries like food, medicine and other perishables, software like this will help you retain your existing customers, gain new ones and expand your business beyond your current boundaries. But don’t just take our word for it, we are trusted by over 2000+ brands and you can check out why, here!
