Each and every penny saved is important for a business to thrive. You want to do everything that will help your business become more efficient and increase profitability. This is where route planning comes into the picture.
However, just putting a manual route planning system in place or purchasing a software isn’t enough. Once you start using the manual system or software, it’s important to evaluate if it’s being used to its full potential or not.
Don’t worry, we are here to help!
In this blog, we’ll go through 5 common route-planning mistakes and how you can avoid them.
5 Common Route Planning Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
1. Depending on manual route planning
Manual route planning may be possible when you have 1-2 drivers only. However, as the scale of your fleet grows, route planning becomes complex. Your route planning team will spend hours and hours of their time and still may not arrive at the most optimized route.
You should use route planning software to save your team’s time and to get the most optimized routes within seconds. Your team can spend the time saved on business development or critical thinking tasks.
Zeo route planner offers an affordable solution to manage your fleet. It’s easy to use and includes valuable features like driver tracking, delivery time windows, capturing proof of delivery and many more.
Hop on a quick 30-minute demo call to understand how Zeo can help your business save time and money!
Read more: Choosing the correct route optimization software
2. Sticking to familiar but inefficient routes
As a supervisor, you may be aware of certain routes that are efficient as per your experience and historical information. But routes evolve over time and may not be as efficient as they used to be. Using the route provided by the planning software will ensure that you are using the most efficient one in terms of time as well as costs.
Sometimes the drivers may also prefer a more familiar route and take detours. In that case, the driver tracking feature of a route planner will come in handy to track the live location of your drivers.
3. Drivers not making the best use of route planners
Route planners are easy to use and come with multiple additional features. Zeo route planner comes with helpful features like sending trip details to customers and recording electronic proof of delivery. While the drivers are aware of the features, they may use some features regularly and ignore others. The drivers should use all the features as and when required to make the best use of the route planner app.
When new drivers join the fleet, they should be onboarded on the app with full knowledge of the features.
Read more: Revolutionize Customer Communication with Zeo’s Direct Messaging Feature
4. Not utilizing the available reports
A major advantage of route planning software over manual route planning is the availability of reports. Businesses are using all forms of data to make better decisions. It would be a mistake to not make use of the data that is readily available.
After a route is completed you can download the reports to understand if all the deliveries were made on time or if there was a gap between the ETA and the actual arrival time. If the deliveries are delayed, you can further deep-dive into the reasons behind the delays and eliminate inefficiencies.
5. Not considering delivery time windows
The customers have busy schedules and want the deliveries to be made when they are available. While planning the route if you are not considering the preferred delivery slots of the customers then it will lead to failed deliveries or the driver will have to make multiple visits to the same address. This will eventually lead to the wastage of drivers’ time and business resources.
If the preferred delivery slot is added then the route planner will take it into consideration and optimize the route accordingly. This would mean happy customers and happy drivers.
Summing Up
To get the best return on your investment in a route planner it’s important to avoid these common route planning mistakes. Using a route planner is fairly easy and results in improved efficiencies for your business. Just make sure that the planning team and the drivers are taking the best advantage of a route planning software.
