Every business strives for profit margins, and it cannot be achieved by simply increasing sales or attracting new customers. To increase the profit margin, you will need to spend time, money, and effort.
Last-mile delivery plays a vital role in running a delivery business. Similarly, route planning is an essential element of last-mile deliveries. Route planner apps like Route4Me routing software provides optimized routes to streamline the delivery process and provide a quality experience for the customers.
Planning is crucial to make sure that the customer receives their packages on time. But, if the delivery is delayed it will hamper the customer experience. Moreover, it will also harm the reputation of your business by impacting customer relationships.
There are several last-mile delivery management software solution in the market. This software helps to automate the process of route planning and minimize human error. It bypasses manual dependency to ensure that you focus on improving business efficiency.
The planning process helps to determine the delivery strategies that improve daily delivery performance. It helps businesses plan and schedule multi-stop deliveries. So, let us explore how a route planner can help any business to make more profits.
7 Ways Route Planner Can Increase Business Profitability
Here we look one by one at how a route planner is helpful for your business.
1. Saves time on route planning
Manual delivery route planning is time-consuming and ineffective. Also, the last-mile delivery issues cost companies in loss of revenue. Hence, route planners are introduced to make the task easy and make a profit for delivery businesses.
One of the major benefits of route planning is that it reduces route planning time. Route planner provides the shortest and most optimized delivery route for processing deliveries in minimal time. This also helps to create multi-stop delivery routes for increased efficiency.
The route planning software takes into consideration several factors like weather, traffic, time windows, and turn restrictions. This helps to minimize the fuel costs for overall delivery operations and helps to increase your profits.
2. Increase driver’s productivity
When manually planning routes, it is challenging to communicate details of routes to each driver. Wisely planning routes can help increase your company’s output as a whole.
Route planning can help to remove the problem of driving back and forth between locations and avoid a waste of time. It is a great way to make sure that time is utilized well to improve the driver’s productivity.
Businesses that use route planners save weekly hours, thus decreasing on-road time. It helps the driver to concentrate on being more productive and achieving delivery efficiency. The optimized routes help drivers to make more deliveries on a particular day. This will help to increase business growth and profitability at the same time.
3. Lessen carbon emissions
The need for last-mile delivery businesses has grown, with the rise in online shopping. Inefficient route planning means excessive fuel consumption leading to more carbon emissions.
For any delivery business, carbon emissions can be decreased by planning efficient routes and reducing idle time. The most efficient routes will help to cut the usage of fuel and improve fuel economy.
The optimized routes are the shortest routes, which means the vehicle will be on the road for less time. As on-road time is less, it will reduce pollution and does not impact the environment.
Reducing carbon emissions is essential as it eases the effects of global climate change, boosts the global economy, maintains biodiversity, and benefits human health. By cutting carbon emissions, we ensure cleaner air, water, and food for future generations.
4. Real-time visbility
Route planner analyzes real-time traffic and gives the most efficient route possible.
With the route planning app, you not only get optimized routes but also updates regarding the driver. This feature is helpful for business owners operating multi-stop deliveries to hundreds of stops. But, in the case of customers, they get updates about their packages. These automated real-time alerts help both drivers as well as customers.
Drivers get optimized routes with 100% accurate details. So drivers can make any changes to their route while delivering. But, they need to ensure that the customer’s pre-determined drop-off timing is not affected. It maintains deliveries in order and eliminates driver’s headaches.
Some of the benefits of real-time visibility for a route planner are:
- Keeps customers informed about their parcel
- Helps to monitor driver’s performance
- Easy to handle real-time issues
- Avoids rash driving
- Reduces downtime
5. Improver control over the driver
In manual route planning, you cannot know the actual update about your drivers at any given time. This is only highlighted after the customer has filed a complaint.
Every delivery driver can be supervised using this software to ensure the deliveries are implemented professionally. It will help to deal with any type of challenges and process smooth delivery operations.
However, route planner software having access to a GPS tracker can help to improve a driver’s visibility. You would rely less on drivers to know the real-time delivery status.
For example: you can keep track of the driver’s speeding limit or idle time, and so on. This helps to maintain control over the drivers and take necessary actions if needed.
6. Decrease expenses
Route planning software decreases labor and fuel expenses and cuts down on unnecessary operational costs. It minimizes delivery time and increases delivery efficiency.
The planned routes can help the drivers to reach the delivery stop on time. It offers optimal routes so that you cover less distance and save on extra fuel charges. This also means that drivers spend less time on the road, which lessens the wear and tear on the vehicles resulting in the least vehicle maintenance cost.
Route planner minimizes the fuel cost for overall delivery operations to help increase profits. Therefore, switching to automated route planning can help business owners expand their on-field operations and make profits.
7. Enhance customer service
A route planner can help to meet the business schedules and make necessary changes to the scheduled routes as per demand. This helps to deal with last-minute customer requests and provide them with a better experience.
The route planner will reduce complaints regarding late arrivals. This is because it helps you get faster and more effective routes so that your driver can quickly reach the location.
Route planning software helps to spend less time on the road through the best routes. It also minimizes wastage of time and covers more number of delivery stops in a day.
Through the software, customers can receive timely notifications about dispatch or delivery status. Planner software also includes proof of delivery, which protects business owners from any complaints. Once the delivery is made, drivers can take photos of the delivery as evidence. This will reduce the chances of customer disputes.
You can also provide customer-requested deliveries to build a strong relationship with the customer and boost your business presence. As a result, business efficiency can be increased, which will ultimately help to gain desired profits for your business.
Importance of Route Planner
- Reduces driving time and eventually fuel consumption and cost
- Reduces driver frustration as planning decreases on-road time
- Improve customer satisfaction due to on-time deliveries
- Decrease vehicle wear and tear
- Maximize driver and vehicle productivity
Benefits of Route Planner
- Save time and effort to perform deliveries efficiently
- Importing addresses helps to handle the delivery workflow
- Advanced scheduling helps in smooth management and route planning
- Boost business performance by 40% to stay out of your competitors
- Save up to 40% of fuel costs to maximize your profits
Conclusion
As a business owner, there are several things to take care of, like driver’s expenses, operating vehicles, and your office workers. Professional route planning software eases the delivery management process and skyrockets your business.
Hence, using the right route planning software can help you minimize route planning or route optimization hassles. Route planning is a fully automated process that can help you get the most efficient route within seconds.
Moreover, it reduces the communication gap between the driver and the customer. It also avoids handling multiple calls with the driver or customer. This is how customer experience will help to retain existing customers and boost the growth of your business.
An efficient route planner can improve your delivery performance and make a positive difference in your profits. So, if you are a business handling multi-stop deliveries, it is always recommended to use the correct route planning app.
