How Route Optimization Enhances Last Mile Delivery?

To understand better, a customer wants his/her order delivered at a specific time. Do you have a last mile solution in place for that?

Route and fleet management software comes in handy in these situations. With an automated route optimization software, you can put your entire route planning into autopilot as the system automatically assign vehicle and optimize the route for the order when it comes in.

How does route optimization enhance last mile delivery?

To put it simply, DSD route software is a tool used to automate the route settlement/route optimization process between manufacturers or suppliers and their PoS (point of sale) or PoC (point of conversation) retail partners. When you’re working with thinner profit margins, every expense counts. Fuel, labor, and time become that much more important, so optimizing the three becomes a top priority.

For this reason, every DSD business has to consider some important questions. Are drivers adding unnecessary miles or off-route stops to their delivery routes? Is extra money being spent on inventory waste or spoilage that could have been avoided? Are delivery vehicles forced to make costly re-deliveries, or failing to maximize time-effectiveness?

These are but some of the concerns DSD Route Sales Software seeks to alleviate, and in doing so, reduce operating expenses, increase sales opportunities, and provide extra functionality for management, delivery drivers, back office, and warehouse staff alike.

Real-time Tracking

Route optimization integrates real-time tracking into the delivery cycle, and the customers can track their orders with a map interface. This will enhance customer satisfaction to a great extent and their loyalty towards your brand. Real-time tracking also eliminates internal issues and delays due to traffic and climate, as you can forecast the condition of the roads assigned for delivery.

Optimized Delivery

Route optimization helps fleet managers designate every deliverable load that needs to be dropped in a particular area to a specific vehicle and works out an ideal delivery succession plan with the shortest route for the vehicle. Likewise, route optimization software helps streamline the distributions model by utilizing the single and multiple pickup and drop algorithms.

Calculate the Exact ETA

Real-time tracking of the delivery vehicles with route optimization can help the companies calculate the customer orders' accurate ETA. And when the customer knows when the product will arrive, they can prepare accordingly or reschedule the delivery if they are not available to pick the order. This also gives the delivery company to prioritize deliverables based on expected delivery dates.

Maintaining Delivery Proof

Maintaining sufficient documents regarding dispatch, delivery, condition of the goods, payments via cash or card swipe, and customer's signatures as proof of delivery completes the entire cycle of last mile delivery. Having all the data regarding the shipment delivery cycle readily available will help solve customer quires on the go.

Enabling Dynamic Re-routing

Providing the customer with the ability to dynamically re-route the delivery is another way of enhancing the last mile delivery operation. When customers can change the delivery address or reschedule the delivery due to un-availability or inform extreme weather conditions and traffic over a phone call can help the distribution company in many ways.

Visualized Route Planning

Your customers know their location better than you. When your customers are informed about the delivery route by your order tracking application, they can compare the planned route against the best route on the map, identify the bottlenecks and reroute your delivery vehicle.