We Tried 3 Best Home Delivery Management Software - Here’s Our Feedback
So you’re looking for a home delivery management software, but you’re unsure what’s the best one for your business?
In that case, you’ve come to the right place, because we have tested and tried some of the
most widely used home delivery management software in the market.
In addition to trying them out ourselves, we’ve also made sure to:
- Interview past and current users;
- Check out the reviews in all SaaS-relevant sites such as G2, Capterra, etc.
As a result, we’ve comprised a list of 3 great home delivery management software you can use to effectively track and manage your deliveries from pick-up to drop-off.
Before choosing your ideal option, let’s start with listing the features that the right home delivery management software should have.
TLDR
- As a regular home delivery service provider, you will want to ensure that your deliveries are handled correctly.
- When deciding on the best home delivery management software, you must consider the option that wil best help accelerate delivery and enable you to take more orders, while keeping your customers satisfied at all times.
- eLogii is an ideal choice for small and large businesses alike, and offers some of the widest range of customisation options, in terms of both delivery and loading parameters and integrations
- OptimoRoute has good functionalities and some handy features, but the per driver pricing will make the cost rack up for all but the smallest businesses
- FarEye’s limited number of features combined with its per-user pricing policy makes it a decent choice for the small businesses that are just beginning to find their way around home delivery management
Must-Have Features of the Best Home Delivery Software
1. Real-Time Tracking
When it comes to delivering your orders, you need real-time tracking. It will allow you to monitor all the deliveries in real-time.
This will help you to plan the route for your drivers and to communicate with your customers effectively and efficiently, keeping them up-to-date with possible changes in ETA due to road blocks, traffic jams, weather conditions, etc.
One of the most critical features that a home delivery management software should offer in order to be able to provide users with real-time tracking is integration with location-based applications like Waze, Google Maps, and Here Maps.
2. Proof of Delivery:
The proof of delivery feature is significant to verify:
- The delivery status;
- That your customers got their orders on time and in the right location.
The best delivery management software should have an automated way to send proof of delivery.
Moreover, offering several different methods of POD is a huge plus, so your customers can choose between various options, such as barcode and QR scanning, photography, e-signatures, etc.
3. Driver Management:
In most cases, there is a large number of drivers involved in various deliveries.
It’s essential to manage their work hours, be able to frictionlessly assign a task to the right driver based on location and expertise, and so on.
The best delivery management software should be able to do all that in just a few clicks, as well as provide a clear and uncluttered overview of working and breaks schedule, to enable easier planning.
4. Automated Routing:
Automated routing is another critical feature.
With automatic routing, the software does route planning for you to avoid any unnecessary delay, so the drivers will not have to waste time finding a proper route.
Moreover, being able to detect any unforseen circumstances that affect the ETA is of pivotal importance for optimising routes and keeping customers satisfied and in the loop about their delivery.
5. Support App Integrations:
Home delivery management software should integrate with a third-party application to make life easier for you and your customers.
The best software should allow you to integrate with an app of your choice and even build your custom app with their APIs.
6. Setting Up Custom Parameters
Setting up things such as drivers’ profiles, which include each driver’s skill level, availability, breaks and working schedule, etc. will allow you to easily match any delivery with just the right driver.
Being able to do the same when it comes to vehicles, that is, setting up parameters regarding vehicle type, capacity, special capabilities and more will enable you to immediately know what vehicle is suited for deliveries with special requirements.
For example, frozen food can only be delivered by vehicles with proper refrigeration, while pharmaceutical products demand some other special conditions, etc.
Moreover, you could even allow customers to choose their own preferred vehicle type and driver skill for their delivery.
And now, without further ado, let’s delve into the best home delivery management software list.
Best Home Delivery Management Software Option 1: eLogii
eLogii is a platform that offers an end-to-end solution for multi-channel home delivery management.
Why use eLogii?
eLogii lets despatchers create complex delivery routes with just a few clicks - taking into account a whole range of extra factors, like traffic conditions, truck restrictions, and multi-day routing for long-distance deliveries.
Drivers can use it in conjunction with Google Maps, Waze, and Here Maps - and their location tracked in real-time via GPS.
Not only does eLogii enable email and SMS communications with customers, updating them on live ETAs, it also allows task failure workflows to be automated - cutting the heavy associated costs.
It supports every major type of POD, and even allows you to define custom confirmation conditions (eg proof of age verification).
Where eLogii outclasses the competition is in the range of options and conditions it supports. For example:
- Driver “skills” to match tasks to the best agents
- Vehicle multi-capacity optimisation (eg plan loads around capacity, weight, pallet number, etc)
- Custom driver start and endpoints
- Tolerances for late and early delivery
How much does eLogii cost?
One of the great things about eLogii is that it provides custom pricing for every customer, depending on their needs.
This means that there is no one-size-fits-all price - eLogii lets you tailor every package to your needs and tasks.
They do provide some information about packages though, as per the image above - showing that pricing is based primarily on tasks per month.
A Starter can expect to pay around $359 per month for 2,500 tasks, which includes unlimited users and all the most important features. But some of eLogii’s most advanced functionality is restricted to the higher tiers: see here for a detailed comparison.
eLogii: in a nutshell
eLogii is the ideal last-mile delivery software for businesses small and large alike - except for really small firms who won’t need all its features, and so would be better off with cheaper options.
Not only does it tick all of our best last-mile delivery software boxes, but it’s also extremely easy to use, it allows more customisation of route and load parameters than any of the alternatives, and it has a modern, best-of-class API and webhooks making it easy to plug into any tech stack.
Best Home Delivery Management Software Option 2: OptimoRoute
OptimoRoute is first and foremost a route optimisation tool, as the name would suggest!
That means it’s useful for a lot of sectors that make service calls (eg pest control, appliance technicians, plumbers, etc) as well as those making deliveries. But it also means it’s missing a few features specific to delivery firms, particularly concerning wider supply chains.
The software works on a simple principle. It identifies the optimal route for your drivers to use and helps them make further plans by taking all their experiences and past routes into consideration.
This is a helpful feature when you have multiple deliveries happening at the same time. You can easily plan the right and most efficient route for your drivers to follow.
Why use OptimoRoute?
OptimoRoute enables you to see the precise location of drivers in real-time via data collected in the mobile app. That means it can also provide live rerouting, dynamic ETAs, and notifications.
However, the only Proof of Delivery methods OptimoRoute provides are signature and photo, meaning it does not support some of the highly sought after POD methods like barcode scanning.
However, OptimoRoute does offer some features that will attract certain types of business:
- Weekly planning
- Co-ordinated orders, where multiple drivers are needed to work together on a job
- Away-from-depot pickup (for on-demand services) and multi-day long-distance route planning (also available from eLogii), in beta
OptimoRoute has more options for customising delivery needs than some other software (eg driver skills can be specified for particular tasks, vehicle loads can be optimised based on weight or volume, etc), but these are not as extensive as those offered by eLogii.
The tool has a thoroughly documented HTTP API that uses JSON for structured data exchange.
In terms of looks, OptimoRoute’s UI is attractive but a little crowded - as you might expect from something dealing with plenty of different variables.
How much does OptimoRoute cost?
OptimoRoute charges on a per driver basis, unlike eLogii.
What’s the catch? Well, OptimoRoute does impose a cap on the number of orders (a pickup or a delivery) that can be planned and stored at once - which will be a nuisance for bigger businesses, as that the cap is just 1,000.
The more serious issue for bigger companies is that per driver pricing becomes extremely costly, fast. A moderate-sized fleet of 25 drivers, for example, would cost $1,102.50 per month, and at that size the order limit becomes problematic.
OptimoRoute: in a nutshell
Although it has lots of attractive features, OptimoRoute has one serious shortcoming.
Its pricing policy makes it far too expensive for medium and large business, given that it charges users on a per driver basis.
However, if you only have a smaller fleet to manage, then OptimoRoute could do the trick for you.
Best Home Delivery Management Software Option 3: FarEye
FarEye is a platform that allows users to ensure contact-free deliveries in areas where social distancing is required.
It also has a very efficient mechanism for managing your deliveries and drivers. It will let you log your order details and track past orders in real-time.
Why use FarEye?
FarEye has several options that can make it an interesting option to consider.
It has intelligent routing for fast home deliveries that can take into account changes en-route to a certain extent, although it doesn’t provide you with real-time ETAs like eLogii.
It can help you set up automated tasks for drivers that will be delivered to them according to a pre-set schedule you’ve devised. However, you would still have to manually take care of matching driver and vehicle with a particular delivery, meaning you cannot set up various custom parameters.
Finally, you can track orders, monitor deliveries, and monitor drivers in real-time.
You should be aware that some users have reported glitches in the software, and that the overall UI is quite dated.
How much does FarEye cost?
Since there are no information on their pricing policy disclosed on-site, we can’t tell you much about their pricing policy as such.
Ahat we do know is that FarEye is priced per user per month, with a starting price of around $20 per user, and there are no minimum commitments.
Keep in mind though that this means that as your business scales, the prices can skyrocket before you know it.
FarEye: in a nutshell
Given its rather limited number of functionalities, and the fact that it is priced per user, makes FarEye a decent option only for the smallest of businesses.
The Bottom Line
Any business running a home delivery operation in 2022 should be using home delivery management software.
Automated route optimisation, live package tracking, and sending out prompt notifications will almost always enable you to lower costs and improve customer satisfaction.
But what businesses should use which software tools? Here’s our final recap:
- eLogii: Businesses of any size looking for a powerful, elegant, scalable, and highly-customisable solution
- OptimoRoute: Has some advanced options but its pricing policy makes it a fit only for smaller businesses that don’t have an extensive fleet to manage
- FarEye: The smallest of businesses with fleets comprised of just several vehicles that can get by with a limited number of functionalities.
See how it works in action!
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