Optimizing Pickups and Dropoffs in Last Mile Logistics

Last mile deliveries are rarely as simple as you want them to be. In a perfect world, a delivery driver would load up their truck at the beginning of the day, visit every delivery site in an efficient sequence, and come back at the end of the day with an empty truck and a wake of satisfied customers. This would simplify life, and it would be easy enough to optimize.

But anyone who works in logistics can tell you that it doesn’t usually shake out that way. You might need to incorporate backhauls into your delivery runs to process return orders. Your trucks or vans might need to come back to base to reload in the middle of the day. A customer in a huge rush might want to just come by the warehouse in their own van and pick up a pallet of goods. You might need a one-shot at the end of the day that involves a truck making a pickup stop at a warehouse first. 

By the time you’re done grappling with all of these added complications that can crop up in delivery planning and execution, you’re so far away from a simple route plan that you can barely see it at all. 

If the part or all of the scenario above resonates with you, then the first question you have for any new route optimization solution should be: can you optimize pickups and dropoffs?

Challenges in Routing Pickups and Dropoffs

If store stops, will call orders, reload routes, or any other activities that don’t fit into the classic “lasso” route model, you’re going to have to deal with added complexities and challenges to achieve optimal routes. 

Customer Pickup Orders

Customer pickups are usually an afterthought in last mile planning—but they can go sideways quickly. If you can’t give the customer a time window that reflects the availability of their order and the associates who are going to fulfill it, they’ll show up whenever they feel like it and wind up loitering in your parking lot, fuming. 

Scale that up, and you’re looking at a traffic jam at your store or warehouse and a host of overworked associates trying desperately to get the right orders to the right people. And that’s before we even start talking about documentation—since you’ll need proof of pickups for these as well. 

Simply put, without the right system in place to optimize customer pickups, you wind up with slow, inefficient fulfillment and a complete lack of visibility. 

Store Pickups and Reloads

In one sense, sending your trucks to stop at the store or warehouse is just another stop on a route—but if you treat it that way, you may run into issues. Sequencing becomes a lot more important in these cases (the truck needs to have enough room for additional items at the very least), and you need to empower your drivers to load the right items with the right documentation.

This is something you can jerry-rig with most routing solutions—but when you do that you risk potential disruptions. 

Benefits of Optimizing Pickup Logistics Within Your Last Mile Framework

Like we saw above, customer pickup logistics can be chaotic by default—but if you treat it like the rest of your last mile process, it’s possible to optimize it in a way that saves you time and money. 

Here are some of the benefits that come with that:

• Improved customer experience: An optimized pickup logistics process gives you the ability to communicate proactively with customers about when their orders will be ready for pickup, and to fulfill their orders more quickly once they arrive. Here, you leverage a communication cadence similar to what you use for deliveries, including letting customers self-schedule based on your capacity rules. 
• Enhanced visibility from end to end: When you’re treating pickups the same way you treat last mile deliveries, you can empower your associates to capture proof of pickup via a mobile app and update the status of each order as it progresses. This boosts visibility significantly, so that your pickups are no longer a black box.  
• More productive associates: People work more efficiently when they have clear guidance and they’re not overwhelmed. If you can empower store and warehouse associates to pick and stage the right orders at the right time, and notify them on their mobile devices when a customer arrives on site, you can streamline and simplify fulfillment at the warehouse or storefront.

Essentially, the same benefits also apply to the broader pickup and dropoff optimization that we’ve been talking about. When you’re able to map out your route plans in such a way that they account for store stops, reloads, and the like, the entire last mile process becomes more standardized.

It’s the same if you’re routing an entire series of pickups—whether that’s for donation management, returns management, or any other aspect of your business. With this approach, you can enhance your level of visibility, and you can achieve more control and consistency across the board by leveraging smarter proof of pickup/dropoff, real-time tracking, and digital documentation. 

The question is: how do you make sure you’re actually getting all of those benefits out of a route optimization solution? 

Choose a Solution That Can Handle Pickups and Dropoffs Seamlessly

When it comes to optimizing pickups and dropoffs in the last mile, lightweight routing apps generally aren’t going to cut it. At the same time, a TMS is too heavy duty for most modern delivery businesses. Threading the technological needle can feel like a challenge. 

Luckily, there are last mile optimization platforms that can support these use cases easily enough. Here are a few things to look for in last mile logistics software that help you ensure you’re getting a solution that can meet your challenges:

• Focus on connectivity—when a solution slots easily into your technology stack, you can improve visibility across the board in a way that simplifies pickups and dropoffs. 
• Configurable, AI-powered route optimization—the right route optimization will be able to handle reload stops, store pickups, and anything else you care to throw at it, all without slowing to a crawl or losing out on efficiency.
• End-to-end capabilities—it’s easy for last mile routing, execution, and customer experience to wind up in their own silos, but the right solution will seamlessly integrate all of these areas to create connected delivery experiences that are convenient and efficient. 
• Standardization and documentation—proof of delivery and proof of pickup should be baked into every stage of the process, so that you have a complete digital audit trail for every pickup or dropoff that you can refer back to as needed.
• Full-featured pickup logistics capabilities—your last mile platform should essentially enable you to leverage the entire last mile routing and execution journey, just without the delivery routes; this means scheduling, visibility, communications, and documentation for will-call pickups. 
• Strong customer experience management—whatever steps you take to optimize, it’s crucial to keep in mind that it’s the experience of the customer that will define a successful or unsuccessful delivery; that’s why the right solution will offer comprehensive customer experience management tools.

Optimizing Pickups and Dropoffs with DispatchTrack

DispatchTrack’s solution is purpose-built to help businesses optimize pickups and dropoffs across the entire last mile logistics process. We’ve helped businesses across a diverse array of industries to streamline routing and scheduling—no matter how complex their use cases. If you want to learn more about how we can help businesses like yours reduce delivery costs and improve performance, reach out to our team today.