It’s a cliche at this point to say that the last mile of the supply chain is often the most expensive—but it’s true. Studies show that it can account for about 40-50% of total logistics costs, and anecdotally we’re pretty sure that it accounts for more than half the total frustration, lost sleep, and pulled out hair in the supply chain.
Sometimes that kind of delay is an inconvenience, sometimes it’s a dealbreaker. The upshot is that routing plays a huge role in your average delivery business’ ability to keep customers happy and manage costs.
That’s why it’s so important to find the best multi stop route planner app for your business and its last mile needs.
Before we get into the features and capabilities that differentiate the best route planning and optimization technology options for the rest of the pack, let’s talk a little bit about who needs route optimization and what challenges they should be targeting with it.
This is hardly an exhaustive list, but it should give you some idea of the level of complexity that can go into route optimization. If you’re grappling with these challenges, the odds are that you need a sophisticated route planner app that can handle a wide variety of different use cases.
The bad news there is that many of the lightweight or even free route route planner options available on the market aren’t going to cut it—but the good news is that route optimization technology has evolved in recent years, and your routing options are better than ever.
Every delivery business is different, and everyone’s going to approach their last mile logistics process with a different mindset and a different set of existing teams and processes. That means there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to routing.
At the same time, there are a handful of capabilities that you should look for in your routing solution pretty much across the board:
If that sounds like a tall order, well, it is. But the benefits you get from leveraging the best route planner app can have a significant impact on your last mile operations.
Here are a few ways the right routing technology can help:
It’s no secret that finding the shortest path between two points cuts down on fuel costs and driver hours. But that’s not the only way that smarter routing can save you money: It can reduce the number of failed deliveries by ensuring on-time performance and accurate ETAs. It can reduce the number of hours routing specialists spend putting the fastest routes together in the first place. And it enables you to choose the most cost-effective ways of serving your customers by looking at holistic cost-to-serve.
Pretty much all of the methods of reducing costs that we mentioned above can also be applied—often simultaneously—to improving the delivery experience that you offer your customers. The ability to deliver on time is huge regardless of what industry you’re in—and AI-powered route optimization with highly accurate ETAs can make that happen consistently. Likewise, when you have the flexibility to adjust your routes quickly and easily, you can respond more quickly to customer requests. This might include last-minute order changes, or simply last-minute orders. When you can route them for the next day or even the same day without breaking a sweat, you can build brand loyalty and ensure happy customers.
Delivery businesses have to deal with a constantly-changing marketplace, and that can be hard to do when your processes are slow or inflexible. With a SaaS-based route planner that has the kind of capabilities we’ve been discussing above, you can set yourself to evolve with the marketplace, a changing technology landscape, and changing business needs. You can update your routes as needed, you can ensure that you’re always running the most up-to-date routing software so you can avoid compatibility issues, and you can gain new capabilities over time to stay competitive.
Route optimization can be challenging for delivery businesses. But the best route planner app can make a huge difference in terms of just how challenging it is—with significant knock-on effects across the entire last mile process.