For B2B organisations, delivering on time plays a critical role in satisfying and retaining a customer base.
While this may be a given, with several factors contributing to a seamless last-mile delivery process, it’s easy for poor delivery performance to arise. This in turn potentially impacts customer relationships and business reputation.
Delivering on time supports the efficiency of entire supply chains, with delays often disrupting workflows, increasing costs, and sometimes causing lost sales.
According to vWork CEO, Roy Moody, effective last mile delivery processes also helps in avoiding non-compliance penalties wherever they might apply.
“Ultimately accurate last mile delivery will improve a company’s bottom line by reducing the costs of supplying goods and other associated expenses,” he says.
“It’s important to address any potential issues affecting your on-time delivery capability while finding a technology solution that supports a smooth and highly efficient delivery process.”
This is where vWork comes into the picture. At a time when technology is reshaping every aspect of delivery services, making competition in the market fiercer, there are several ways it can guarantee on-time deliveries – every time.
vWork is a cloud-based solution designed to ensure businesses and their entire delivery fleets can better understand last mile delivery requirements for every, individual, customer.
“With a centralised data source, every driver has easy access to information, without which delivery delays and errors are likely to occur,” Roy says.
“Route mapping uses real-time road and traffic information to ensure drivers follow the best possible route for each delivery they are assigned to. With all drivers able to access the same information, there is greater service level consistency across the organisation.”
vWork’s technology has the ability to update customers on expected delivery arrival times plus send texts and emails in advance, as well as offering real-time location tracking.
It also enables three-way messaging between the customer, dispatcher, and driver enabling operators to better manage resources efficiently and deal with any issue that may present itself.
“Giving your customers a communication channel with drivers not only gives them greater peace of mind and a more personalised service,” explains Roy.
“It also helps ensure goods are delivered to the right place, on time, while facilitating a more efficient handover. Customers can make necessary arrangements, such as meeting the delivery driver to receive goods, and plan their day much more efficiently around deliveries.”
Designed from the ground up to be integrated into existing tech stacks, vWork has also developed a range of off-the-shelf integrations for leading Australian accounting and telematics solutions.
vWork’s telematics integration gives dispatchers pin-point GPS accuracy of all vehicle locations, which Roy says is a game changer for last mile delivery logistics.
“Imagine giving your drivers the ability to locate precise drop-off points first time, every time, rather than wasting time circling a block for a building or loading bay, or even dropping off oversized goods in the wrong location altogether on large work sites,” he says.
vWork enables delivery schedules to be matched against capacity and constraints.
“The use of pinpoint GPS data when scheduling jobs for delivery not only speeds up deliveries where drop-off points are difficult to find, but it also minimises the chances and costs of lost or misplaced goods.”
The app also takes into account the driver’s hours, skills, location and available capacity to create a set of routes that allows for the greatest number of jobs to be completed in the least possible time.
It enables delivery schedules to be matched against capacity and constraints whilst automatically working out the fastest and most efficient routes for hundreds of jobs and their delivery drivers.
By setting realistic delivery goals and deadlines, operators can ensure resources are allocated most efficiently and effectively to meet customer expectations.
Plus, Roy says, it gives management a far better understanding of the causes behind missed deadlines, allowing them to forward plan.
“vWork also enables operators to record variations between the actual goods delivered versus the original order,” he says.
“For example, if stock is damaged in transit or needs to be returned to the warehouse, this information is captured along with time of delivery.”
Through integrating vWork with inventory management systems, you get up-to-the-minute delivery information that helps you better manage stock levels, based on returns, damaged goods or ordering errors.
“Last-mile delivery performance can become highly reliant on the experienced knowledge of a handful of individuals within the business to get things right upon delivery,” Roy says.
“By hosting customer data in one centralised location, such as an app, businesses and their entire delivery fleets can better understand the ins and outs of individual last-mile delivery requirements for all of their customers. This is especially true where they might have very specific needs and need to continually adjust and update the information to improve the speed and quality of the last-mile service.”