6 Tips to Improve Your Last-Mile Logistics Operations
With consumers inclining towards online shopping platforms to meet all their shopping needs, speedy and timely order delivery has become the top priority of the brands. As a result, businesses have started to opt for new technologies and measures that can help them to expedite deliveries, increase the number of deliveries, and deliver unmatched customer experience.
Here is when last-mile delivery comes into the picture. Also known as last-leg delivery or final-mile delivery, last-mile delivery is the process of transporting goods from the last pickup point to the customer’s place. It is a key consideration in achieving customer satisfaction and improving brand reputation. There are several challenges that businesses have to face to streamline their last-mile operations. Some of these include:
· Increased cost
· Failed deliveries due to incorrect address
· Optimizing routes
· Unpredictability in transit
· Vehicle and driver shortages
These challenges can impact the overall last-mile operations and even the image of a brand. But the great thing is that you can improve them by following these six tips given in this article:
1. Discover your business requirements
Consider your customer base, order volume, and other important factors to determine the number of vehicles required for the delivery, teams needed to manage orders, initiate pickups from the closest hub/warehouse, allocate them to the vehicles, planning efficient routes, and complete the delivery process. Once you have all the data related to your business logistics, it would be easier to create strategies that can ensure smooth and cost-effective deliveries.
2. Utilize your vehicle capacity
To utilize your vehicle’s capacity, you need to consider a number of factors such as type of vehicle (frozen, chilled, regular, etc.), nature of goods, weight constraints of the vehicle, the volume of the orders, and weight. After segregating the consignments according to these factors, map them with the right vehicle in a way to use its capacity completely. Doing this would help in reducing fuel cost, driving time, and vehicles’ maintenance cost.
3. Plan and optimize routes efficiently
Planning and optimizing routes can not only ensure timely delivery of your orders but also avoid getting stuck in traffic and prevent idling of engines. Choosing the most efficient routes also helps in reducing fuel cost and increasing the number of deliveries in a day. Apart from the route optimization, make sure your last-mile delivery solution is also capable of dynamic route planning, which can provide new routes in case of any change in customer’s delivery time or location.
4. Measure your performance
Keep measuring your last-mile logistics performance to pinpoint the problems. Also, if you are using a 3PL for your last-mile deliveries, then measuring their performance would help you to know which 3PL is providing you with good services at a minimal price. It is also imperative to create better and profitable strategies for last-leg operations.
5. Put your customers first
It means maintaining complete transparency with your customers. You can do this by providing them with a tracking link using which they can know the updated status of their order. Moreover, provide them with the option for rescheduling deliveries, contacting drivers, checking estimated arrival time of the order, and opting for contactless deliveries.
6. Integrate a last-mile delivery solution
Even if you have a team for performing last-mile delivery, you cannot guarantee precision and perfection in the work. Moreover, doing all final-mile delivery tasks manually can eat up a significant amount of time and effort. To avoid the same, you can opt for a last-mile delivery software, which would automatically do all these tasks without even human intervention. A Last-mile solution can not only help you get rid of all the challenges but also save the overall shipping cost while ensuring on-time deliveries and customer satisfaction. We have listed other features of a last-mile delivery solution at the end of this article. Here are some other benefits of an automated last-mile delivery software:
· Increased deliveries per vehicle
· Reduced fuel, vehicle maintenance, and overall shipping cost
· Track and trace consignments in real-time
· End-user visibility
· Fewer calls to your customer support center
· Improved transparency
· Complete consignment visibility
To integrate last-mile solutions to your business logistics, you can contact a last-mile software provider. And in case if your business needs more than just managing the last-mile operations, then you can opt for a transportation management software from Shipsy. Shipsy’s TMS comes up with a last-leg solution and other features to utilize vehicles capacity, plan and optimize routes, and complete visibility to the end-customer. Get a customized transportation management system right away!
