What Is Dispatch Software?

Is dispatch software just about scheduling and monitoring drivers in your fleet—or is there more to it? It depends who you ask. On the one hand, dispatch software can be as simple as a solution that saves you the effort of manually dispatching drivers by handling the process electronically. On the other hand, it can be an important cornerstone to your larger delivery and fulfillment efforts, connecting routing, scheduling, dispatching, visibility, customer experience, and more under one roof so that you can level up your fleet management capabilities.

Businesses across the last mile are struggling with routing inefficiencies and workforce scheduling difficulties, and a lot of those challenges can come down to dispatching, scheduling, and routing. Drivers may be assigned deliveries that don’t fit in neatly with the rest of their routes, or they may be assigned ETAs that are totally unrealistic to hit.

Either way, the result is more time spent in traffic, and higher cost per delivery. At the same time, last mile performance can also impact customer experience, which has its own knock-on effects in the long run. 

If you’re dealing with these problems, or with larger problems of delivery execution in your fleet, your best bet might be to invest in dispatch software.

What Is Dispatch Software, and How Can It Impact Your Business?

Right off the bat, let's answer an important question: what is dispatch software, and why does it matter to your business?

Dispatch software automates the manual process of matching drivers to delivery assignments. It’s a tool designed to help dispatchers find the most suitable driver and assets for the right tasks. To do this efficiently, the software might also track locations, wait times, arrival times, and much more. 

The primary function of an automatic dispatch system is to assign work and route appropriate delivery vehicles to the appropriate orders. Of course, if you’ve ever tried to do this process by hand, you know that managing this feat efficiently is easier said than done. Your dispatch software needs to provide a clear window into each drivers' previous assignments, records of previous jobs, other information about the drop-off location, and capacity constraints, and many other parameters.

Some dispatch solutions also allow drivers to communicate directly with dispatchers and customers to alert them of possible delays or provide them with status updates. In these instances, job notes, arrival times, and other important information are automatically imported to work orders to eliminate human errors in documentation. 

Before the emergence of the dispatch software, dispatchers had to spend hours scheduling the drivers' routes and handing out printed dispatch slips. With the right software, almost all of that manual effort vanishes. Fleet managers and dispatchers empowered with the right solution will only need a few minutes to route and dispatch drivers efficiently, even when you're dealing with a high volume of deliveries.

What Are the Benefits of Dispatch Software?

Integrating the right dispatch software means reducing the need to retain a small army of dispatchers, thus allowing your team to handle more high-value tasks. Here's how the best dispatch software helps everyone from the dispatch to the driver the end customer:

Automation

One of the hardest tasks facing fleet operators is providing customers with an accurate estimated time of arrival (ETA). Routing and scheduling automation via a truck route planner helps you provide accurate ETAs by eliminating the complexity and uncertainty that come with manual route optimization. You can create even more accurate ETAs by tracking drivers' locations and statuses throughout each and every delivery run (something your dispatch software should make it easy for you to do).

Again, dispatch software will also find the most suitable driver whenever changes have to be made. If the dispatching functionality is part of a more cohesive solution, you should also be able to send an automated message to the customer with the updated arrival time.

Dispatching drivers by hand can be incredibly tedious and time consuming. But dispatch software that automates the process of optimizing routes and providing assignments to drivers can cut the process down to just few clicks and a matter of minutes. This kind of software can also eliminate the problem of double booking of drivers or other schedule availability issues that are usual in manual dispatching.

Combined with route optimization functionality, the dispatch solution can make order fulfillment more efficient and reduce wasted time.

Complete Logistics Visibility

Fleet managers, dispatchers, and customer service team members all need to be able to get a clear view of how operations in the field are unfolding on the day of delivery. This includes the status of every order, truck, and driver down to the minute. If an irate customer calls the customer service team demanding an updated ETA, the customer service team should be able to easily view the details of the order and delivery. Even better, the right dispatching software helps them can spot the problem before the customer calls and work proactively to resolve it.

In practice, the key to making this happen it is to house routing, execution, and tracking under one roof. Your dispatch software should also include a connected driver mobile app, as well as user-friendly delivery dashboard that makes it easy to spot exceptions at a glance. 

Scalability

A single dispatcher working by hand can only handle so many vehicles in a day. With dispatching software, however, you can reduce the number of personnel who have to work on dispatching, allowing you to utilize your resources on other functions. Because you’re not dependent on human labor for dispatching, you can increase the number of truck routes being dispatched without disruptions. 

The right software will run on scalable, cloud-based technology so that your operations never slow down, even if you have to increase the number of routes you're optimizing in a given day. 

Flexibility

The dispatch management process can be hectic. Things change and often become more complex as your company grows. And the absence of a reliable process here can result in chaos. Dispatch software helps you adapt to their new business needs and challenges by reducing the overall level of complexity involved in day-to-day operations. Essentially, the right software future-proofs your processes by digitizing, standardizing, and integrating them with the rest of your logistics capabilities. 

You can also gain added day-to-day flexibility from the sheer fact of speeding up the dispatching process. Dispatching doesn't need to be a bottleneck for the rest of your delivery management workflow. 

"Before DispatchTrack, I could never have delegated the routing of the trucks. I wouldn't have had that crucial first 2 hours of the day to devote to overseeing multiple different teams within the company." Walter Greathouse, Customer Experience/Ops Manager, Gunton Corp, DBA Pella Windows

Read the case study to learn more!

Reporting and KPIs

Fleet operators are always in search of new ways to improve their workflows to increase customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. Thankfully, dispatch software can help companies better understand their operations and identify new business opportunities in just a matter of clicks and minutes.

For example, dispatch managers who want to visualize planned vs actual performance for their routes can do so quickly and easily with a solution that's already collecting all of that data on each delivery run. It should be the same for managers who want to know the average cost per stop, cost per case, or cost per route across their network.

Higher Customer Satisfaction Scores

It’s hard to overstate the importance of customer experience when it comes to delivery fleet management—which is why you really don’t want your dispatch software to overlook it. DispatchTrack’s own research has found that half of consumers blame negative delivery experiences on poor communication, and that on-time delivery is usually the best aspect of a great delivery experience. 

Luckily, the right dispatch software helps companies deal with new consumer demands. Automating dispatching allows businesses to offer more shipping options and ensure faster deliveries, all with increased ETA accuracy. Plus, the right software can provide customers with updates on the delivery status, which also helps businesses increase customer satisfaction. 

This can even include the use of AI-powered agents designed to speed up the customer support process and streamline the load on your existing team. 

Managing fleets has become more complex in recent years, and it's not about to become simple again any time soon (if it ever was). Without the right tools, fleet operations can be disorganized, inefficient, and wasteful. Dispatch software that can automate task assignments, offer real-time visibility, and improve customer satisfaction can go a long way in helping you satisfy customers and grow your operations.