Do You Think Heavy Traffic Blocks are the Only Reason for Delayed ETA’s? Think Again!

 

Stuck in traffic? That’s a problem from everyone from a delivery associate to an operations manager or their very customers. Every person understands the unpredictable nature of traffic snarls.

 

We have all been there, “I am late. Stuck in traffic!”. It has become the epidemic of new generation of which we can’t find any cure.

 

‘Stuck in Traffic’ is something we don’t ask questions about due to sympathy with the victim. But should you ask questions? Is traffic the only reason meetings, appointments, or estimated time of arrivals are delayed?

 

Let’s consider some basic expectations with a package delivery at work. What are these obvious basic expectations?

 

The three main benchmarks of an on-time last mile delivery management are (1) Expectation Management, (2) Location Accuracy, and (3) Route Optimization.

 

Here is more on the three benchmarks of on-time delivery in last mile delivery management.

 

Customer Expectation Management within Last Mile Delivery

 

Customers, a few years ago, were thrilled by express deliveries of close to 2 days. Such speedy deliveries were a point of pride. They were a proof of privilege. There were many who questioned the logic of having such priority shipments. Similar set of people questioned the validity and requirement of a phone on your own person all the time of the day. But times change. Last mile delivery management is one such thing that has been the catalyst of this transition.

 

Estimated Time of Arrival

Estimated Time of Arrival

 

The gap between the customer’s expectations and the actual delivery has been almost closed off in the past few years. Clients and customers alike, are glad to receive shipments within a day right at their warehouse or doorstep. Recently, the technology behind effective last mile delivery management has outpaced the very expectations they were designed to manage. Now, companies outshine each other in exceeding expectations. They have been ably supported by effective last mile delivery technology.

 

However, at times customer’s expectations exceed even the basic assumptions of reality. If a person wants a delivery in an hour and is then dissatisfied if it doesn’t happen, would disrupt the entire expectation management process. There would always be early adopters and impatient users, but rushing to cater to them might push your basic service level of agreements of a realistic but impressive ETA out of the window. Expectation management works both ways, on the customer’s front and on the company’s front which sets those expectations in the first place.

 

Location Accuracy Defines Effectiveness in Last Mile Delivery

 

Cloud support for on-field delivery personnel and in-transit deliveries have made the entire last mile delivery process more real-time.

 

Location accuracy with real-time cloud based support has made the addressing system in companies extremely precise. Error reporting in finding addresses has gone down a lot. However, there are still human errors that must be accounted for.

 

Automation can never be human proof. Working with flawed data would give you flawed results.

 

The churn of bad data pushes the ETAs into unrealistic domains which are often prone to errors. Finding these addresses puts stress on other deliveries, even those with clear locations defined.

 

LogiNext has identified and built on multiple solution sets for its client which involve a collection of more than 1 billion data points where each data point captures unique location markers, which are updated within that same unique data point. This way, experiences of each delivery is captured in the system and processed for the next delivery around the same location.

 

Delivery Route Planning and Optimization Software Channeling Timeliness

 

Inaccurate delivery route planning leaves the delivery personnel with sub-optimal scheduling leading them to unnecessarily long routes. ETAs are delayed by more than 25% purely due erroneous delivery route planning. Lack of delivery optimization leads to a rigid and unhealthy supply chain, creating multiple bottlenecks. Sub-optimal delivery routes also add to the fuel and time cost of deliveries.

 

The antithesis to the problem is the solution itself. Proper last mile delivery management can ensure delivery route optimization that would solve the problem of delayed ETAs and escalated costs. However, not many in the industry are able to do this satisfactorily. The reason behind this is that such level of optimization requires a specific expertise level attained by companies that have invested heavily in research and innovation in the domain of database engineering and machine learning to add to their planning algorithms. LogiNext boasts of such proprietary algorithms that have optimized routes across the world for many fortune 500 companies.

 

Delayed ETAs are a sum of multiple bottlenecks and service disruptions that go beyond just traffic.

 

To attain on-time deliveries, one must look at the big picture and execute a consolidated plan of action. You do know where to find such consolidated plans of action, don’t you?

 

Cover Image: Entrepreneurship and Effective Small Business Management

Blog Image:  Logistics Manager

 

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