How Companies Use Routing Software to Save 118 Minutes On Dispatch Calls

Today you’ll see how you can easily save time on dispatch calls.

In fact, this is the same way companies save 118 minutes per day when they dispatch drivers and vehicles.

Their secret: eLogii.

And in this article, we take you step by step on how you can achieve the same results.

Let’s get started. 

Why Is Saving Time Important for Your Dispatchers?

In short, your dispatchers carry a lot of responsibility on their shoulders.

They often bridge the gap between customers’ needs and workers’ availability. They are the ones making sure that orders are delivered on time, and field service appointments are fulfilled on schedule.

It’s a multi-step job and process through which a company manages, allocates, and monitors deliveries and service calls.

How successfully someone does the job of a dispatcher rests on effectiveness. And technology helps immensely here.

Using proper routing software that automates many tasks helps dispatchers focus on task prioritization, assigning those tasks to available drivers, and achieving maximum visibility over the fleet while it’s en route.

Giving space to dispatchers to focus on other tasks means having them spend less time on dispatch calls.

Without well-rounded route optimization software, a dispatcher can get lost in a sea of tasks, and no amount of skills such as active listening, customer communication, and organization can help them.

That especially goes for periods of high demand, such as holidays.

In today’s world, customer expectations keep growing, even outside high-demand periods. Your clients expect:

• Same-day delivery
• High-level customer service

Besides that, you need to be aware that:

• Competitiveness is high in almost any industry and marginal differences can make or break a business.

• Fleet driver turnover rates are escalating. According to a National Private Truck Council official that spoke to Trucking Info media, that could lead to a shortfall of drivers of 175,000 by 2024.

Seeing how time equals money and how any business should strive for cost-effectiveness, it’s clear that you should focus on saving time on dispatch calls.

And with eLogii, you can save up to 90 minutes per day.

How You Can Use Routing Software to Dispatch Your Drivers

Many features come with proper routing software.

Here are the ones that help you save time on dispatch time:

Digital Route Optimization

Planning routes manually and planning them automatically are two completely different worlds.

The bigger your fleet, the more daunting the task of manual optimization.

Yet according to Praxedo, over half of the businesses are still dispatching and scheduling manually!

What they should do is let the software do the tedious job of planning routes and calculating the optimal route the drivers should take.

The automated processes of software will come up with the most cost-effective solution no matter how many stops and orders are added to the dashboard.

Schedule Planning

Routing software is not just for route optimization and planning but for another thing as well:

Planning top-notch delivery schedules.

Here’s how to schedule planning via software that helps you dispatch drivers:

• After you plan a route, a schedule for each driver is automatically created.
• Then, your dispatcher can adjust the schedule based on prioritization.

The software calculates a more precise ETA. So both your drivers and customers are better equipped with information about the delivery and thus require less direct communication with your dispatchers.

Furthermore, you can expect fewer bottlenecks at pick-ups.

Making Dynamic Adjustments

One of the most vital qualities of your dispatch team should be problem-solving.

That is because unexpected events are always possible on the road.

Dispatchers should be quick to observe a problem and respond adequately.

For instance if there’s an unexpected traffic jam on a driver’s route due to a car crash, that can have a detrimental effect on your schedule, order fulfillment, and customer satisfaction.

Routing software is an essential additional tool for your dispatch team when it comes to this.

It’s a dynamic solution that works by immediately notifying dispatchers of issues that arise.

Then, your dispatch team can adjust delivery routes and schedules in real time.

That further shows up as updated information on your drivers’ tablets and smartphones, eliminating the need for direct calls between drivers and dispatchers.

Scheduling Breaks

Dispatching drivers isn’t just about sending them on the road. It’s also about knowing when to tell them to take a break.

It gets harder to keep up with the state of your drivers if you have a large fleet. And if you get flooded by orders during the holiday season, keeping drivers’ healthy turns into a challenge.

Dispatch driver apps make it easier for delivery dispatchers to observe if some drivers need a break in their delivery schedule.

The software also makes it simple for dispatchers to add the break into the schedule. No dispatch calls are needed - the driver will receive a notification.

Whatsmore, you can set defined driver breaks into the schedule. Your drivers will then know in advance when they’re required to rest.

All that keeps your fleet personnel safe and happy and helps dispatchers comply with regulations and run effective operations.

Applying Driver Constraints

Here’s one great way routing software displays its flexibility - it lets you plan deliveries easily while considering specifics about drivers.

What does this mean?

Well, your dispatchers can input different information into the software. They can take into consideration things such as having drivers that:

• Are of higher age or have specific health conditions
• Have special skills or experience
• Have cultivated a trusty relationship with loyal customers
• Are assigned to specific vehicles
• Can operate rare equipment

Then, they can set up driver constraints as having different hour requirements than the general strategy, the option of scheduling specific drivers to specific locations, allocating more time to some drivers, etc.

All of this provides an easy and automated way for your dispatchers to notify fleet drivers about their deliveries and thus reduce potential delays.

Monitoring Vehicle Capacity

The better overview you have of your fleet, the better you can manage people, equipment, vehicles, and orders.

Part of fleet management and dispatching drivers is considering vehicle capacity.

That became as obvious as ever when the COVID-19 pandemic began. The impact of COVID-19 on last-mile delivery was massive.

Companies couldn’t meet the demand - both because it shot up and because moving goods around became a logistics challenge.

Some resorted to hiring more fleet drivers and acquiring more vehicles. But that wasn’t the most sophisticated solution.

Those who were more in tune with technology started using software that merely helps raise the capacity of their existing fleet.

The trick was to spot idle space in vehicles and reduce it by raising the order volume per vehicle.

That also made the job easier for delivery dispatchers - instead of calling up drivers, they could use the software to see when vehicles get back to depot sites and raise the number of orders drivers pick up.

So, monitoring vehicle capacity through software helps improve visibility, last-mile delivery when demand exceeds capacity, and communication with fleet drivers - thus saving up time when dispatching.

Tracking Drivers

Now we come to one of the most glaring benefits of using software for dispatching - driver tracking.

Routing software doesn’t just let you monitor vehicles along the last mile of delivery. It allows dispatchers to know where your drivers are while on the job.

More precisely, dispatchers can know:

• What task is your driver performing at the moment
• What is their route
• What is their next stop
• What they have completed that day
• If they are following instructions
• What is their performance rate
• What is the driver’s ETA

That reaps many benefits, such as letting dispatchers:

• Spend less time on delivery dispatch calls with drivers and customers
• Help drivers follow the schedule
• Adjust routes in real-time
• Plan deliveries as orders arrive
• Give out accurate ETA predictions

Of course, delivery management software informs you on other vital data, such as collecting KPIs. And analyzing them, too!

Analyzing KPIs

Analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) equips you with crucial information that grows your business.

Delivery management software tracks KPIs such as order accuracy. Thus, KPIs can benchmark the performance of your fleet and inform your dispatcher of the state of your fleet and drivers.

You and the dispatchers can use the downtime KPIs uncovered to draft a better delivery operations strategy.

The tactic you come up with will be founded on the KPIs and should focus on a more cost-effective approach that reduces the time dispatchers spend on calls and one which relies more on informing drivers via the software.

Benefits of Routing Software that Save You Time on Dispatch Calls (+ Save You Money!)

Automating your dispatch operation will reap many benefits. The key ones are:

Better Customer Communication

Just one of the things that route optimization automates is customer communication.

Here are some of the perks of a well-rounded delivery management platform:

Customer Self-scheduling

Routing software such as eLogii can be additionally equipped with an Order Management System (OMS).

That’s all thanks to routing APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). They act as bridges between different apps, allowing them to communicate with one another.

An important thing to note is that APIs work both externally and internally.

Internally, it helps by automating how the platform creates tasks. Externally and more importantly for our article today - it lets customers self-schedule deliveries.

That makes the job easier for you - instead of your team consulting with the customer to assess what delivery date works for them, the customer can book the time and date that suits them the most.

In practice, this is what that looks like:

• The OMS gets access to your delivery fleet schedule.
• Then, at checkout, customers are shown the available delivery slots.
• Customers pick out a slot that suits them (it may be a precise time or, more commonly, a delivery time window).
• The picked-out slot is logged on the route planning software.
• That automatically creates a task on the platform.

This benefit can easily save you up to 30 minutes per day! No more need for your dispatcher (or whoever was in charge of customer scheduling) to call up the customers directly. Rather, the routing software, the OMS, and the customer do the job for them!

Customer Notifications

More and more people are dreading phone calls, so your customers will be grateful for instant notifications and status updates.

No need for direct calling, or even direct texting and emailing.

Delivery management software such as eLogii does the job for you.

How?

Well, customers can set custom SMS notifications or automatic emails for every step of the delivery process.

From informing them when the order is created as a task, to informing them when the driver is 10 minutes away from their location.

That raises order accuracy, lowers the number of failed dispatch shipping, and boosts your ROI. All that is thanks to the option of keeping customers informed about what’s going on with their orders.

Online Order Tracking

We’ve already stated that keeping customers in the loop about their orders has its benefits.

But instead of burdening your dispatchers with being on-call for every inquisitive customer, you can simply add order tracking to the list of customer notifications.

The software can let customers know about precise ETAs.

That way, you boost customer satisfaction and business transparency while saving time on dispatch calls!

Visibility Over Drivers

Real-time updates save time on dispatch calls since they give a useful alternative to dispatchers: visibility over the software dashboard.

Dispatchers know at all times during work hours if the drivers are at the right place at the right time.

Software such as eLogii provides a one-stop place for a seamless logistics experience. Your drivers can be notified of any unforeseen changes in a hassle-free automated way.

That allows driver dispatchers to focus on doing their tasks via software instead of via phones and texts.

And bear in mind we are talking about just one vehicle here. If you have five vehicles in your fleet, you save nearly 6 hours per day and nearly $2,500 a month!

Now, we won’t forget about just how much real-time updates save you time and money, too.

Driver efficiency goes up with seamless automation. Pay attention to the highlighted part.

As 0,8 hours translate into 48 minutes, it becomes clear that routing software can save you up to 118 minutes per day per vehicle! That is nearly 2 hours per day which gives your dispatchers the time to focus on tasks that will help your business expand.