Whether you’re managing all of your truck dispatching manually and looking to digitize your operations, or you’ve already got dispatching software and you see room for improvement, it can be daunting to wade through all of the options available to you. Google will happily AI-generate an answer to your queries about trucking software, but it can be hard to find reliable info that reflects real expertise about how best to optimize your trucking operations.
There’s no doubt that the right technology can go a long way—the trick is to make sure you’ve defined your goals, your areas for improvement, and the scope of the projects you’ll need to undertake to make that happen. In this way, choosing the right software is also a matter of understanding what’s possible.
Index:
What Trucking Dispatch Software Options Are Available Right Now?
One of the reasons it can be difficult to get to the bottom of the trucking dispatch software situation is that dispatching means different things to different people. While, fundamentally, we’re all talking about dispatching orders or stops to drivers and technicians, different providers are focused on solving different problems.
McLeod Software:
Per Descartes (their parent company)’s website: “Since 1985, McLeod Software has provided powerful transportation management and trucking software solutions to the trucking industry. These solutions, developed entirely by our company, are comprehensive and support integration with a broad array of complimentary logistics products.”
McLeod has been around for a while now, but its focus is more on the TMS/dispatch software side of the equation. Their core offerings (LoadMaster, PowerBroker, LoadMaster LTL, and DocumentPower) focus on truckloads and freight matching, without a dedicated module for last mile delivery execution.
Truckbase:
Truckbase is focused more or less exclusively on asset-based carriers, helping them with dispatching, tracking, and invoicing. In their own words, they try to help custokmers “[e]liminate data entry and grow with a TMS built for growing asset-based carriers.” Depending on exactly what your business’s goals are, this can certaintly be valuable.
DispatchTrack:
At DispatchTrack, we approach dispatching as an integral element of last mile deliveries. That’s why we’ve built a cloud-based last mile delivery platform that streamlines and optimizes every element of the process. Unlike TMS platforms that offer some dispatching capabilities, we’re laser-focused on helping businesses get the right goods to the right customer at the right time. We help more than 2,500 customers around the globe to promise what they can actually deliver, deliver at the right time, and delight their customers. How? By streamlining dispatching and route optimization into a single unified process.
From there, our platform handles the entire last mile journey from end to end: customer engagement, delivery tracking, proof of delivery, driver management, and reporting. In this way, we bridge the gap between planning and execution.
<<Check out our Customers page to learn how we’ve helped businesses from Ryder and Spirit Logistics to SiteOne and Morris Furniture to reduce delivery costs and delight their customers>>
How the Best Trucking Dispatch Software Impacts Customer Satisfaction
With all of these options to choose from, it’s important to keep the goal in mind. Yes, cost-reduction is important, as are digitization, operational efficiency, and other big ticket items.
But at the end of the day it all comes down to the customer. How are your technology decisions impacting the people whose business you rely on, and how can you make their experience smoother and less frustrating across the board?
Here’s how the best trucking dispatch software does that:
- Increased on-time delivery rate: At the top of the list is one of the things that customers consistently rate as one of the most important parts of the delivery experience: getting their goods on time. The right software can help you ensure consistent on-time performance by integrating smart, AI-powered route optimization with your dispatching operations.
- Shorter delivery lead times: When your routing and dispatching is more efficient, you can get orders scheduled more quickly—meaning you can fulfill same-day and next-day orders without causing chaos. In fast-paced industries with customers who often need their orders yesterday, this can go a long way towards cementing the power of your brand in the minds of the customers who rely on you.
- Improved visibility: Cloud-based dispatch software that’s designed for easy connectivity across devices will make it much easier to gain real, strategic visibility into your deliveries. This means going beyond GPS coordinates to track driver and delivery statuses plus real-time exceptions and ETA changes over time. You can then turn around and offer this same level of visibility to your customers so they can track deliveries from the comfort of their own devices.
- Digital proof of delivery: If you have a dispatching solution that offers end-to-end capabilities for the entire last mile, you can capture digital proof of delivery via pictures, signatures, and notes. You can then share this proof of delivery directly with your customers for their records. This potentially saves you from false damage or liability claims, but it also simply enhances visibility even further for your customers.
The best part is that many of these factors can help optimize costs in addition to boosting customer satisfaction. You can think of things like improved visibility and better on-time performance in terms of the ROI they’ll provide in the form of improved customer loyalty, better Google reviews, and smoother last mile operations from start to finish.
How DispatchTrack’s Software Helps Delivery Organizations Delight Customers and Reduce Costs
Even the best TMS for dispatchers isn’t going to enable you to turn logistics plans into happy customers. For that, you need to focus your dispatching efforts on the last mile. If you’re looking for the best trucking software for your business, choose one that will offer you the ability to tackle the entire last mile journey from end to end.
That’s exactly what DispatchTrack offers. Here’s how we help our customers to keep their customers happy—all while controlling logistics costs across the board:
- 98% accurate delivery ETAs via AI-powered route optimization
- Automated dispatching (streamlined with route optimization) for reduced manual effort
- Total last mile visibility for faster exception management and improved execution
- Reduction in delivery lead times thanks to faster, easier routing.
- Decreased costs associated with phone calls and other manual customer communications with our automated customer engagement tools
- Improved first-time delivery success rates
- Decreased not-at-homes and unplanned returns
- Digital proof of delivery for improved delivery audit trails and easier dispute resolution
Over 13+ years, we’ve empowered more than 2,500 businesses around the globe with the software they need to ensure smarter dispatching, faster planning, and improved execution. We know our customers are laser-focused on ensuring great delivery experiences, and we’re committed to giving them the capabilities they need for smarter dispatching and routing.
When it comes to finding the best trucking dispatch software, it’s important to align your software with your operational priorities.
If you see the last mile as an area where your operations could be more efficient—and where you could more consistently delight your customers—get in touch with the last mile experts at DispatchTrack today. We’ll show you all the ways you can streamline and automate dispatching and related processes to achieve smarter deliveries and happier customers.