9 Benefits You Need from a Dispatch Management System

When RC Willey digitized their dispatching, they saved huge amounts of money on paper alone. Their route manifests and proof of delivery were all on paper that had to be printed out, handed out, tracked, and filed each day—a huge amount of labor that put hard limits on efficiency and visibility.

Not only did automated dispatching solve those problems, it helped ensure smarter, more connected workflows across the entire last mile delivery process. They were able to communicate with customers more easily, track drivers in real-time, and access proof of delivery instantly. As it turned out, this was a recipe for cost savings. 

Their story isn’t a one-off. Rather, it’s a case in point for the power of updating your routing, dispatching, and other last mile processes. By upgrading your dispatch management system, you can decrease costs, improve customer experience, and improve last mile delivery performance. The trick is to find a software solution that’s designed to provide you with all the benefits of modern, SaaS-powered dispatch management. 

The Benefits of Dispatch Management Software

By automating routing, dispatching, tracking, and other processes, the right dispatch system can make your last mile delivery management more efficient and cost-effective. Here are some of the major benefits to look for in this kind of software.

1. Automated dispatching

The right dispatch management solution will come with tools to automate the assignment and scheduling of drivers. Ideally, you won’t even need to worry about dispatching as a separate step—it will happen automatically when you finalize your delivery routes for the day. 

The right software will use real-time information and historical data such as weather and traffic patterns to create efficient route plans. It will also leverage real-time information such as the vehicle's current location and the routes drivers are taking to offer full visibility into your fleet's resources. This way, it’s easy for dispatchers and fleet managers to monitor driver activity, delivery statuses, incoming proof of delivery, etc.

2. Improved fleet performance

Your dispatch system software should be a centralized online system for delivery management. With a connected mobile app and GPS tracking, fleet managers and dispatchers can track their resources accurately and receive real-time updates.

This ultimately helps you improve overall fleet operations by allowing fleet managers and dispatchers to come up with an organized and efficient daily dispatch plan, communicate any changes in the delivery as soon as possible, and find the best-suited driver for a given order. Simply put, it’s easier to stay on top of the complexity of managing a delivery fleet without spending inordinate amounts of time hunting for the information you need.

3. Visibility into drivers

By the same token, your dispatch software should help dispatchers and managers track routes in real time proactively manage any exceptions that crop up on the day of delivery.

Your software should also integrate seamlessly with telematics technology if needed. For instance, you might set up your system to alert dispatchers and managers when drivers engage in unsafe driving practices. This can help you identify drivers with performance issues in order to create training plans to correct unsafe driving behaviors. Conversely, you can set up driver incentive programs that reward good performance. 

4. Faster, more accurate route optimization

Fuel accounts for a large chunk of your fleet's operating costs. Another huge chunk comes from driver hours. That’s why it’s crucial to look for software that can reduce the total mileage that drivers have to traverse between stops, thereby reducing fuel consumption and ultimately saving money. This is where AI-powered route optimization comes in. 

The right dispatch software enables you to implement cost-effective, efficient route plans with a few clicks. By factoring in fuel and vehicle cost, location, real-time traffic and road conditions, and so on to create more efficient routes, you can complete more stops per day in a more cost effective way. Improved route optimization also allows dispatchers to make adjustments on the fly as needed and communicate changes to drivers in real-time as well.

For instance, DispatchTrack’s route optimization capabilities have helped delivery organizations speed up routing time by 50%, increase their capacity utilization, and achieve on-time delivery rates of 98% or better—check out our customer stories to learn more! 

5. Flexibility and scalability

Businesses need solutions that can adapt and adjust according to their changing needs. If you can find dispatch system software that is scalable, and customizable, it can easily add value to even the most complex workflows. This enables you to make smart decisions much more quickly, all while building processes that are actually scalable no matter your number of trucks or routes. Here, cloud-based technology is invaluable—well-architected SaaS solutions will give you the ability to scale up your usage without breaking a sweat. 

6. Data-driven insights

Data is destiny—now more so than ever. That’s why any software you adopt now should provide you with intelligence tools to help you monitor performance—everything from order completion rates and ETA accuracy to customer satisfaction and cost-per-route. Integration with BI tools, ERPs, and other solutions can also be extremely valuable when it comes to getting the most out of the operational data that you collect. 

7. Streamlined fleet compliance

On top of all the complexities of getting the right goods to the right place at the right time, fleet managers in many areas also have to deal with a number of regulations and compliance hurdles. Luckily, the right dispatch software equips fleet operators to be fully compliant with government rules and regulations. An advanced truck dispatching app helps you to comply with the hours of service (HOS) mandate by enabling drivers to log their hours electronically, thus reducing paperwork and errors. 

8. Lower costs

All of the efficiency improvements that we’ve discussed over the course of this article have all been leading towards one of the things that’s most important for delivery businesses: cost reduction. 

The right dispatch software also helps fleet managers to have better control of operational expenses. Route optimization helps you find the most cost-effective routes, allowing you to save on fuel costs, costs associated with vehicle wear and tear, hourly wages for drivers, and even reverse logistics costs. Automating the dispatch process ensures that the best available drivers and resources are matched to the right jobs while full real-time visibility across the delivery process. 

Reducing manual paperwork saves you hours of work and the wages that go with them, and—like we mentioned above—even the cost of paper. All this allows you to save money, time, and resources—ultimately lowering operating costs.

9. Improved customer satisfaction

If there’s one thing that competes with cost for top priority, it’s customer experience. Luckily, this is an area where you can have your cake and eat it, too. In fact, many of the cost optimization measures we mentioned can contribute to improved CX. 

For instance, Using real-time information allows businesses to provide the accurate expected times of arrival (ETAs) to customers, to say nothing of providing reliable deliveries and service calls overall. Not only does dispatch management software help you find the quickest routes for drivers to take, it helps you figure out exactly when your drivers will arrive at each stop. This can have a huge impact on customer experience—especially when it comes to bulky deliveries where customers may be used to unreliable six-hour time windows. 

Similarly, you can leverage automation to send out ETA notification, schedule confirmations, and a huge array of other alerts and notifications to customers automatically. This gets your team off the phone, while giving customers a more reliable cadence of information via their preferred medium—text or email. You can even allow customers to track orders in real time from the comfort of their own devices. 

At the end of the day, dispatching software is no longer optional for businesses. It's a must-have tool for helping lower operating costs, exceed customer expectations, and increase fleet productivity. Simply put, it’s one of the keys to gaining a competitive advantage in a highly competitive marketplace.