6 Best Practices for Implementing Truck Fleet Software

Your truck fleet is so much more than a collection of assets. It represents one of the most complex parts of your business, and your ability to ensure connectivity and visibility into how your fleet operates is a major success factor when it comes to logistics. That's a huge part of the reason that more and more fleet managers are turning to modern technology to help overcome challenges. Specifically, they're turning to cloud-based truck fleet software at double the rate of traditional on-prem deployments. 

Fleet management challenges come in various forms, and modern fleet managers need to arm themselves with the best tools and resources. Technological tools like truck fleet software that enable smarter delivery management are increasingly key to overcoming fleet-related challenges.

At a very high level, businesses need to ensure operational efficiency and fleet safety. Managing fuel consumption, driver safety, exception management, and fleet expenses are all part of a fleet manager's job. But managing all these aspects of fleet operations can be burdensome or even impossible if you don't have the right resources.

That’s why truck fleet software equipped with automation, visibility tools, and more is key to overcoming operational challenges. Below are some best practices for effective fleet management using truck fleet management software.

How to Get the Most out of Your Truck Fleet Software

1. Leverage the Right Fleet Management Technology

A business is only as good as the tools it has at its disposal. To effectively manage fleet operations, you need to invest in technological solutions that can store essential data and analyze fleet operations. This way, fleet managers can spot trends and patterns affecting fleet productivity.

Likewise, it’s essential to find advanced delivery management software that allows you to integrate with other enterprise solutions seamlessly. You can learn more about how to select the right fleet software, but suffice it to say that fleet managers without the right fleet management solution will just end up getting frustrated.

2. Ditch the Conventional Processes

We’re deep into the digital age by now, which means modern businesses need to transform to keep up. Fleet management specifically requires ditching paper maps, spreadsheets, dispatch slips, proof of delivery, and other vestiges of manual processes. 

Manual processes are inefficient. Physical logs are far from the optimal tool to use to update and record massive quantities of data. And reliance on spreadsheets makes it more challenging for fleet managers to route, dispatch, and track their deliveries.

Those who still rely on conventional processes spend too much time managing data and often have to re-do the work. In contrast, the right truck fleet management software makes workflows more efficient and cuts out manual effort wherever possible, increasing your fleet's overall productivity.

3. Implement Real-Time Tracking

The right fleet management solution allows dispatchers and fleet managers to track their drivers, vehicles, and equipment in real-time. Status and locations tracking helps ensure that drivers are following route plans and are spending their hours productively.

Telematics devices can be integrated easily with advanced fleet software systems. These devices then transmit information from the vehicles to your dashboard instantly, allowing managers to have better control of every area of operations in a single platform.

Here, the quality of your dashboard is crucial. In an ideal world, you’d be able to see the status of every truck and every order from a single screen in order to easily spot exceptions.

Real-time tracking can also help large fleet managers stay informed on driver performance and behavior, e.g. harsh braking, cornering, exiting the geofence, etc. In this way, monitoring fleet operations in real-time empowers fleet managers to be more proactive. Here, it can be helpful to integrate your last mile delivery management capabilities with fleet telematics of some kind. 

4. Automate Data Integration and Reporting

Spending hours each day recording data is inefficient. Luckily, the right solution can give you the tools to collect and analyze delivery data automatically. The right system will ensure that your drivers are equipped with a streamlined, easy-to-use mobile app that prompts them to update their statuses at every stage of the delivery. 

The best fleet routing software enables easy data collection and organize gathered data in a digestible and concise way. Fleet managers should be able to configure reports and aggregate all key performance indicators (KPIs) to share with stakeholders. 

It should be easy to generate reports using whatever truck fleet software you adopt. Ideally, managers should only need to click a few buttons to schedule reports to be delivered to their emails. Here, the ability to cross data flows between different solutions (e.g. your WMS and your fleet management solution) will make life a lot easier, providing better visibility beyond the delivery team. 

5. Optimize Cost Per Delivery 

Fleet managers always need to make sure that their operations are within budget. As such, the right solution will help fleet managers to make cost-effective decisions.

This is easier said than done. Fixed costs that need to be grappled with can include licenses and permits, lease or loan payments, taxes and fees, insurance and registration, and asset loss. On the other hand, variable expenses can include maintenance costs, fuel costs, tolls, and parts and labor, to name just a few. 

The most important starting point for optimizing costs is the ability to automatically measure cost-per-case and cost-per-delivery. This helps you to gain a clear understanding of your operating costs and your overall efficiency. From there, you can take a targeted approach to right-sizing your fleet expenses, e.g. by focusing on boosting capacity through route optimization, cutting out phone calls via automated texts, etc.  

6. Improve Communication and Customer Experience

Keeping everyone from drivers to dispatchers to end customers on the same page can be a huge challenge. But modern technology and mobile applications are great tools to ensure effective communication. A driver mobile app can allow dispatchers, fleet managers, and drivers to communicate effectively and quickly.

Drivers get their work assignments, route plans, and other task-related information through their phones. Meanwhile, managers can track drivers' activities and locations via their mobile devices and send information to drivers quickly. This communication workflow also needs to include texts, emails, and calls to the customer to ensure that they know when to expect their deliveries. In this way, you improve the delivery experience from their perspective and decrease the potential number of disruptions impacting your operations.

Customer experience is without a doubt the next frontier in effective truck fleet management. All the efficiency in the world isn't going to move the needle if you're not meeting customers' needs for transparency, connectivity, and on-time delivery performance. That's why the most important best practice on this list is to implement software that can help you roll out a robust, wraparound customer delivery experience. This can include texts and emails, yes, but also two-way communication with dispatchers, and even potentially AI-powered agents to provide instant responses to their inquiries before, during, and after the delivery. 

One DispatchTrack client, Pulse Final Mile, was able to leverage precisely the capabilities we're talking about. The result? A 60 point increase in their NPS score. Read how they achieved it here.

Not all fleet management systems offer the same benefits to businesses—but it’s getting harder and harder to overcome delivery challenges without the right tools. Whether it's keeping expenses within budget, tracking vehicles and drivers, or automating processes like route planning and dispatching, the right solution will offer features to help increase productivity, reduce operating costs, and ultimately grow your business.