5 Ways DispatchTrack Can Improve Delivery Fleet Management

Delivering the last mile is not only costly, it’s also complex. Managing a delivery fleet presents dozens of difficulties, from meeting rising customer expectations to squeezing increasing efficiency out of overstretched operations. The right delivery management software can relieve some of the pressure by automating repetitive manual processes, boosting real-time visibility, applying AI to solve problems and providing actionable analytics. DispatchTrack has proven to be a highly effective last-mile tool. Fully SaaS and cloud based, fleet managers have found five ways that it fundamentally reshapes and improves their organizations.

1. Right Unit, Right Crew, Right Route

Optimization requires more than just plotting the shortest distance between deliveries. To get the highest performance from your fleet, DispatchTrack considers more than mileage. It balances unit capabilities and capacity, crew skills and performance and then distributes your deliveries across the fleet while also calculating the shortest driving distance. Do some deliveries require a lift gate or a refrigerated unit? Are some crews faster at delivering and installing appliances or complex industrial machinery? The software tracks and analyzes results over time, constantly optimizing which units are assigned to a given set of deliveries. The parameters it uses to make those decisions can be adjusted to prioritize distance, weight, cost per delivery, delivery window, customer tier and more.

With the right deliveries assigned to the right units, DispatchTrack plots daily executions that are up to ten percent shorter, saving time and money. Because it learns from the routes as they are performed in the field, over time DispatchTrack becomes even more efficient, using the accumulated history of deliveries of your crews and customers to fine tune its predictions. The result is higher efficiency, performing the greatest number of deliveries in the least time while driving the fewest miles.

2. More Accurate ETAs, Better Communications, Higher Satisfaction

Making deliveries at the time they are expected is fundamental to satisfying customers. DispatchTrack increases fleet on-time delivery and customer satisfaction with hyper-accurate ETAs and robust automated communications.

By applying AI and machine learning to routing, DispatchTrack is able to create ETAs that drivers can meet 98% of the time. DispatchTrack also allows customers to select their own time windows from choices that are optimized for your fleet and pending deliveries. When customers choose their own windows, they’re more likely to be there, decreasing failed deliveries. Fewer redeliveries means higher efficiency and lower fuel costs for the fleet. It also means more customers get their deliveries when they expect them.

DispatchTrack can automatically email, text or place a call several days ahead, the day before and the day of delivery to remind the customer of their time window. Communicating before and during the day of delivery minimizes the need for changes, but customers, drivers and dispatchers can also communicate in real time through SMS, email and phone. If a customer can’t make their time slot, or the driver needs a gate code, DispatchTrack connects everyone to update the delivery arrangements.

DispatchTrack allows customers to track their deliveries in real time with live, updated ETAs, so they see where their truck is, and drivers can send a route start notification and one-stop-away message directly from the DispatchTrack mobile app.

Letting customers choose their delivery time, reminding them before and during the day of delivery, offering live tracking and real-time communications improves customer satisfaction. DispatchTrack automatically sends a survey as soon as the delivery is complete, so customers offer immediate feedback that can be used to reinforce driver behavior and further improve fleet operations.

3. Mixed Fleet Operations

Mixing owned units with contract crews or 3PLs can be challenging, but DispatchTrack has the tools to keep mixed delivery fleets running smoothly. Adding outside units to your fleet is simple and DispatchTrack routes them alongside your owned units. A mixed fleet adds to flexibility and it’s simple to boot up a new crew. Drivers get their routes and manifests through the DispatchTrack mobile app. It runs on most iOS and Android devices so all they need to do is download the app. The interface is simple and intuitive, so anyone can learn to use it in less than an hour.

The app connects everyone across teams, and connects different teams across the organization — from sales to routing engineers to dispatchers, loaders and drivers including contractors. The right logistics software also tracks the performance of contract units and can integrate that data into your fleet analyses.

All drivers, including contractors, provide proof of delivery through the mobile app. Using their device, they gather signatures, notes and photos that are time- and geo-stamped. The app enables scanning, too, so items can be scanned onto and off of the trucks and it includes support for GS1 compliant scanning.

4. Extreme Visibility

Whether monitoring owned or contracted units, DispatchTrack offers extreme visibility into delivery fleet management. The comprehensive dashboard shows high-level summary graphics with alerts so you always know what’s going right and anything that’s getting off track is flagged, so dispatchers can take proactive action to fix or prevent problems in the first place. From the dashboard, dispatchers can drill down into individual routes and see the details and progress for every scheduled delivery in the daily execution in real time. The summary graphics are constantly updated with numbers for total deliveries, deliveries pending, in progress and failed. Delivery notes, photos and signatures are instantly viewable along with messages between, dispatch, drivers and customers.

Dispatchers see unit performance instantly, so they’re able to track and monitor fleet units in real time to ensure that all assets are being used appropriately and remain maximally efficient.

5. Integration, Telematics, Analytics

DispatchTrack integrates smoothly into the tech stack, synergistically adding capabilities to other applications and giving fleet managers end-to-end control over their operations. A robust API allows integration with ERPs, WMS and other stack components from order-in to done-and-delivered and surveyed. DispatchTrack works with and extends the utility of popular logistics platforms including NetSuite, SAP, Storis, GeoTab, Samsara, Podium and Motive.

Telematics can track information well beyond location data, giving fleet managers information about driver behavior and safety data. And it can monitor trucks down to the temperature of individual compartments in refrigerated units. Information about deliveries can be flowed directly into accounting, reconciled with individualized contract terms for clients and drivers, and bills to clients and payments to crews generated automatically.

All of the information DispatchTrack collects about the fleet, the delivery and operations lives in a single database and there’s a powerful analytics engine that produces a wide range of pre-built reports while allowing managers to build custom reports as well.

Delivery Fleet Management Made Simpler

Operating a delivery fleet at high efficiency is never easy, but DispatchTrack makes it simpler with its field-tested tools and comprehensive capabilities. From the field-tested mobile app to front- and back-end integration with the tech stack, DispatchTrack is built to handle any fleet from a few trucks to a few thousand, and it’s scalable to handle enterprise workloads without slowing down.