Fleet Dispatching Software: Why You Need It and What to Look For

Gone are the days when fleet management challenges could be dealt with by hand. Simply put, the operational challenges of running a fleet require the right tools; for many businesses, the right fleet dispatch software—something that can simplify routing and driver assignments—will be a key part of that toolkit.

In this post, we’ll dig into the reasons why you should invest in smarter fleet dispatching software, and what to look for when you’re evaluating potential solutions. 

Why Invest in Fleet Dispatching Software?

A few years ago, a study found that the trucking industry was losing around $16 billion a year due to empty trucks returning from deliveries—around the same time that driver pay and freight-hauling demand reached 20-year highs. It’s a great illustration of just how much room to optimize there really is when you invest in improving your fleet management capabilities.  

Last mile logistics can offer real opportunities for business growth—but most of the players in the field are a long way away from last mile optimization. It’s all too common to see trucks coming back empty when they could be used for backhauls and returns; truck routes criss-crossing one another while running late to half their deliveries; and customer service reps who can’t answer simply customer questions about truck and delivery status. This is where the right software solution can make a big difference. 

What Are the Benefits of Smarter Fleet Management Software?

Like we alluded to above, the right dispatch software offers many advantages to fleet operators. Here are just a few of those advantages:

Reducing Manual Effort

Matching drivers and trucks with delivery assignments is a labor-intensive task, taking valuable hours from dispatchers and other back-end office workers. If you can reduce time spent on the manual task of assigning drivers through automation, you can empower your team to focus on other higher-value tasks instead. 

This same logic appears elsewhere in the fleet management process. Not only can you automate the process of dispatching drivers once a route has been finalized, you can also automate delivery alerts to customers, status updates from drivers in the field, exception notifications, and much more. In each instance you reduce the manual workload of your teams even more. 

Improving Fleet Connectivity Through Visibility

Smart dispatch solutions can help operators and managers gain control of their fleets by tracking statuses and locations with the use of interactive maps and GPS. Better visibility over trucks and drivers provides managers more control on where and when to dispatch drivers, as well as how to manage exceptions when they arise.

The ultimate goal here goes way beyond fleet management and dispatching. It encompasses the entire logistics process—from the warehouse to the delivery site and beyond. The right software will slot seamlessly into your technology stack and give you the tools you need to ensure connectivity, visibility, and standardization throughout the first, middle, and last miles of the fulfillment process. Simply put, the right technology makes it much easier to do things the right way than the wrong way when it comes to ensuring connected, visible processes. 

Gaining Agility

Better visibility, thanks to GPS integration, real-time order status updates, and interactive mapping can also help your organization respond to problems more quickly. After all, plenty of things can and will go wrong while drivers are on the road, and having real-time data on your fleet allows managers to identify problems before they’ve become unsalvageable. Real-time data also aids fleet dispatchers and managers in making proactive, well-informed choices in dealing with the identified problem. This results in both better exception management and reduced inbound customer call volumes. 

Boosting Flexibility

The dispatch management process often becomes more complex as companies grow or expand, resulting in more operational hurdles. But reliable software offers flexibility so companies can scale their operations. Advanced fleet dispatch software can adapt to meet the unique and growing requirements of fleet operators, e.g. by empowering dynamic route adjustments as things change on the day of delivery. If your software solution includes robust route optimization functionality, you can also stretch your existing capacity to cover increased volumes more easily (since you’ll have cut out waste within your routes).  

Increasing Customer Satisfaction Scores

Studies have shown that retailers are worried about increasing customer demand for fast delivery times and concerned about consumers' expectations for low-cost or free shipping. These days, reliable and fast deliveries are a requirement—as is providing total delivery visibility to customers. Studies show that most customers want the ability to track their delivery orders, and they rate strong communication as one of the most important parts of positive delivery experiences. 

Luckily, the right fleet dispatching software allows fleet operators to ensure on-time delivery performance and offer customers total delivery visibility and live tracking throughout the process. Providing dispatchers, managers, and drivers with the right real-time information allows them to work together more seamlessly so they can provide excellent delivery services.

What Essential Features Should You Look for in Your Fleet Dispatching Software?

Automated Fleet Routing and Scheduling

Manually assigning delivery tasks and routes is inefficient—but by implementing the right delivery route scheduling software, you can assign tasks in just a few minutes. Ideally, your solution can also help you identify the best-suited driver and truck for each delivery assignment (e.g. for services or installations that require specialized skills). 

Real-Time Order Tracking

Order tracking and mapping are the backbones of any dispatch software. If drivers are able to automatically update the status of each delivery from out in the field—enabling dispatchers to get a live view of what’s happening in the field—you can continually optimize over the course of the day and avoid disruptions more easily. Add in GPS integration, and you can more effectively monitor driver behavior, manage your assets, and ultimately improve efficiency. 

Automated Customer Experience Tools

Fleet dispatching software isn’t just about dispatching drivers to the right locations at the right times—it’s about ensuring logistics success from end to end, and a huge part of that comes down to the customer delivery experience. 

That’s why the best tools in this area will streamline, simplify, and standardize customer experience across the delivery process. This means automatically sending a robust cadence of branded alerts, from “ready to schedule” notifications to delivery confirmation messages with real-time ETAs to automated notifications when the driver is nearly at the delivery site. 

Crucially, your communication capabilities should go both ways. Customers should be able to easily get in touch with you (or with an always-on, AI-powered agent) if they have any questions or concerns. This builds trust, improves the strength of your brand, and ultimately improves delivery performance. 

Mobile Connectivity with Drivers

A smart, highly-connected, and easy-to-use mobile app is your lifeline to what’s happening in the field on any given day. If your fleet management software includes a mobile app that’s in constant sync with the rest of the team’s activities, you can ensure that you’re capturing the right delivery data over the course of the route. 

Having a mobile app also lets back-end staff such as customer service team members inform drivers of any issue pertaining to assigned deliveries. Simply put, all of the fundamentals that we’ve talked about above require a convenient driver mobile app that seamlessly connects them to dispatchers and customers. As a bonus, the kind of mobile app we’re talking about can hugely reduce the amount of paperwork that drivers need to perform. 

This includes filling out and handing in paper proof of delivery slips, which can easily get lost or mislaid. Instead, drivers can instantly capture photos, signatures, and notes from their mobile devices and instantly transmit that data back to the dispatchers.

In the end, the right fleet dispatching software has the power to offer you better visibility and control over drivers and delivery vehicles, more flexibility, quicker and better-informed responses to the unexpected, and higher customer satisfaction. As competition gets stiffer, tools that help you gain these benefits will continue to be must-haves.