How Do You Solve Logistics Obstacles with Delivery Tracking Software?

Delivery tracking used to be something of a novelty, but by now it’s absolutely standard for a great delivery experience—to the point that 9 in 10 consumers want the ability to track their delivery order.

Meeting customers' demands in these areas can be difficult. After all, last mile logistics remains one of the most challenging aspects of supply chain management. It's imperative for last mile delivery companies to move fast and adapt to meet consumers' expectations—and that means finding the right technology and processes to support customer needs and improve visibility.

This isn’t just a matter of providing a great customer experience, either. Effective last mile delivery tracking has the power to boost efficiency and speed up exception management when delivery organizations are able to leverage that tracking internally. This level of visibility can form the foundation of smarter, more connected, and more unified logistics management from end to end. 

In this post, we’ll tackle the logistics of delivery tracking and why it should matter to consumers and businesses.

Understanding Last Mile Delivery Tracking Software

Last mile delivery organizations fulfill the last leg of the delivery journey. They transport goods from the distribution centers or hubs to the end customers. These carriers are constantly finding ways to eliminate inefficiencies and shorten the last mile distance. And one of the most important tactics is the introduction of tracking technology to provide visibility into deliveries.

There are two aspects to delivery tracking software: order tracking for customers and fleet tracking for carriers. 

As you might have guessed, order tracking for customers provides customers with real-time updates on the status of their delivery. Fleet tracking for carriers pertains to the business' holistic view of the delivery process, enabling them to provide a customer-centric experience.

Delivery Tracking for Customers: What’s the Value?

Your customers have more access to information than ever. They can read online reviews, research businesses, and start developing their expectations around delivery timing and cost before they’ve made their way to your store or site. This forces businesses to work harder to provide an excellent delivery service experience to retain old customers and attract new ones.

Meeting customer expectations

Consumer expectations (to say nothing of the expectations of business buyers) have evolved to the point where they demand information regarding their order in real-time. This includes:

• Driver expected time of arrival (ETA)
• Real-time driver tracking
• Direct driver communication
• Feedback options for delivery service

This does more than give consumers a feeling of control—it also helps them help carriers to reduce failed delivery attempts. 

Crucially, they don’t want to have to call in to get any of this information. Ideally, it would be at their fingertips on their own devices, accessible simply by opening up a customer delivery portal. Or, they might prefer to interact via two-way messaging. 

Here, it can be useful to leverage AI-powered chat agents to give customers instant answers to questions about their orders. 

Real-time GPS tracking and ETAs

Last mile software should also offer customers the driver's actual location on a map and an accurate ETA. This doesn’t just help consumers adjust their schedules. It helps them feel confident that their order really is coming at the appointed time, instead of languishing in a warehouse. This, in turn, reduces the number of incoming calls from anxious consignees. 

Of course, real-time ETAs only add value when you're able to deliver on time consistently. To make this happen, you need smart delivery route optimization software that can predict when the truck will arrive at its destination.

This comes down to your route optimization capabilities first and foremost. You need to successfully estimate traffic and weather patterns, factor in service time (which can vary for different types of deliveries), and account for differences in speed between vehicle types and even individual drivers.

Luckily, the most modern last mile platforms include routing capabilities that can offer all this and more. 

What About Delivery Tracking for Carriers?

Basically everything that makes consumers nervous about their deliveries also has the power to worry the carriers themselves. After all, shippers want to be sure that the right goods get to the right place at the right time. And they’re aware of everything that can go wrong between the distribution center and the consignee’s door. In short, carriers need to make sure that there is visibility on their internal delivery operations, especially during the final mile.

Last mile visibility requires the following delivery management platform capabilities:

Monitoring goods loaded into delivery vehicles

Allowing dispatchers to track deliveries in real-time and providing them with automatic alerts reassures them that drivers are sticking to the plan and working towards on-time deliveries. Having this information at their fingertips can save time for dispatchers.

There are two items here that can be crucial for gaining real visibility into this part of the journey:

• Integrated pallet scanning: When you can enable warehouse loaders and drivers to scan entire pallets onto the truck in one go and automatically register each of the items in the pallet within your various systems, you can speed up both loading and unloading significantly while streamlining visibility into individual items. 
• Warehouse loader mobile capabilities: Many delivery tracking software solutions come with a driver mobile app—but what happens when the person doing the delivery isn’t the same person loading the truck? In cases like these, it’s critical to have a separate app for warehouse loaders that integrates loading data into the delivery management process. 

Capturing proof of delivery

The best route planning software can also capture proof of delivery via signatures, photos, and notes using a driver mobile app. Capturing and recording proof of delivery protects the drivers in cases of missing packages or fraudulent loss claims. It can also speed up billing and settlement for back-office operations.

Deep insights on customer satisfaction

Last mile carrier tracking software provides companies with KPIs that can help spot pain points in the final mile operations. These KPIs can include feedback scores, success rates, distance traveled, and so much more. The data generated by the last mile carrier solution can also be segmented per driver, teams, hours, or week and can be exported for sharing or record-keeping.

The Power of Delivery Tracking Software

Last mile delivery tracking provides customers full visibility and even a sense of control over their delivery experience. It’s hard to overstate how valuable this can be in an era where customer expectations have been steadily rising for years. 

And full visibility on the last mile not only benefits consumers but businesses as well. Having visibility on drivers and vehicles lets businesses ensure that their operations reflect a customer-centric supply chain.

That being said, delivery tracking isn't purely about visibility. It can also aid in speeding up operations and increasing revenues by highlighting operational inefficiencies. In this way, it’s increasingly key to providing customers with a great delivery experience every single delivery.

To invest in last mile visibility, you need more than just tracking and updates—you need a connected logistics solution that brings disparate parts of the fulfillment journey together in a seamless and intelligent way. Not every piece of last mile software can make that happen, but any solution that can is going to pay off rapidly.