Courier businesses face a lot of competition right now because everybody is trying to get a slice of the online retail pie. People have increasingly high expectations about deliveries and they don’t want to wait more than a few days for their parcels to arrive. That’s why speed and efficiency are absolutely vital for courier companies. If you’re going to beat the competition, you need to be the fastest out there. There are, of course, other problems that courier companies face, but the most important thing is getting products out to customers as quickly as possible and if you can’t do that, you’re simply not going to be able to compete. If you are having difficulty growing your courier business, try making these simple changes to improve efficiency.
Route Planning Software
Sometimes, deliveries are slow because drivers are not taking the most efficient route possible. That means they’re driving longer distances and using more fuel than they need to, which is costing you money. It also means that they aren’t getting products out to the customer as quickly as they could be, which is a big problem for you. The easiest way to get around that is to use good route planning software. You can use it to plan the most efficient route possible so you save money on fuel costs and you can make faster deliveries as well.
Watch Traffic Closely
If your driver is late because they weren’t aware of road closures or traffic jams and they got stuck in a gridlock, the customer isn’t going to care. Their product is late and that’s all they care about. That’s why it’s so important that you watch the traffic closely. You need to check for highway closures and busy areas every day before your drivers go out, then you can adjust routes accordingly and avoid any delays. It’s your job as a courier to find the quickest delivery route, so you can’t use traffic problems as an excuse for late delivery.
Pack Vehicles Efficiently
The more packages you can get into each vehicle, the fewer runs you will have to do. That means you can deliver faster and you won’t have to spend as much money on fuel costs either, which is why it’s important that you package vehicles efficiently. You need to group packages based on the destination, of course, so you can minimize the distance that drivers have to go. However, you also need to consider how many packages you can fit into each vehicle.
You also need to think about breakages and make sure that you’re packing items safely. If things are arriving broken, that’s a delivery that you will have to make twice, which has a huge impact on efficiency and if it starts happening a lot, your customers are not going to be happy. Always make sure that you are packing things correctly so that you can reduce any breakages.
These simple changes will help you to improve efficiency so you can get products out to customers quicker than all of your competitors.