What is a delivery tracking software system?
Delivery tracking software traces deliveries throughout the order-to-delivery process.
It can help to improve the efficiency of your fleet, as you always know the location of every order at a glance, with no need to make phone calls to drivers, or ‘guesstimate’ delivery times based on where the driver should be.
With delivery tracking software in place, staff and customers always know exactly where drivers, vehicles, and orders are (and when they are likely to arrive at their destination). This improves customer communication. In a recent study, dynamic status updates were listed as an essential aspect of customer satisfaction.
This combination of improved efficiency (leading to faster and more accurate delivery process) and up-to-the-moment communication leads to a higher level of customer satisfaction. This in turn (as we all know) leads to increased customer loyalty, repeat custom, and positive recommendations.
How to choose the right delivery tracking software system
Delivery tracking software is an important part of any business making deliveries, collections or service calls in their own vehicles.
Choosing a delivery tracking system that fits the needs, goals, and scope of your business is essential if you want to see the dual benefits of improved efficiency and customer satisfaction.
In order to weigh up the different options, you first need to evaluate the needs of your business, then based on that, you can look at the various features of different systems, to evaluate your options, based on the facts most important to your business model, and chose the best delivery tracking software.
Evaluate the needs and requirements of your business.
Start by working out exactly what you are looking for in a delivery tracking system. Ask drivers, planners and operational staff on the ground what features would enable them to do their job more efficiently and effectively.
From there, you can decide what is most important in your decision making. For example, are you looking for software that can scale up and down with seasonal demand? Do you need a system that is user-friendly, and can be easily picked up by staff, with minimal training? Is customer service an essential differentiator to your business, which your delivery tracking software would have to be able to meet? Or does it all come down to the bottom line: cost?
Decide whether you need these key features in a delivery tracking software
The breadth of features available in delivery tracking software is huge. You need to use the information gathered about the requirements of your business, to decide whether you require specific key features of a tracking software, like:
- Customer service – With a system that allows you to customise communication with end customers, and makes it easy to automate that communication (for example, with email or SMS notifications when their order is next up, or if their order is delayed), you can put customers at the forefront of delivery tracking.
- Electronic Proof of Delivery – A delivery tracking system follows an item from order through to delivery, so proof of delivery should be an essential part of the process. A system with advanced electronic proof of delivery (ePOD) functionality, like sign-on-glass, image capture, and time-stamping, is essential for any business that relies on PODs.
- Access to information – Do your staff need to be able to access delivery information on-the-go? A system that includes easily-accessible options, like a mobile driver app, browser-based application, and cloud storage of information, gives you delivery tracking information at your fingertips.
- Historic information – Equally, a system with detailed search and history functionality allows your staff to quickly search for and find historic order information, making it easy to solve disputes and queries.
- Exports and reporting capabilities If you or your customers need to be able to export delivery details, for reporting, recording or auditing purposes, the capability to export to excel or pdf format is a useful functionality of a delivery tracking system.
- Alerts and reminders – By easily sending automatic alerts and reminders of delivery details to customers, drivers or back-office staff, your delivery tracking system can act as a way to communicate easily.
- Integrations -Which platforms and systems does your tracking system need to integrate with? Integrating with order and inventory management systems, like Brightpearl, Veeqo and Sage 50 is an easy way to streamline the end-to-end process of delivery management.
These are far from the only factors that could come into play when making a decision around your delivery tracking software, but these are a start to consider what features are essential to whichever system you put in place.
Evaluate your options based on the factors most important to your business
Okay, we may be somewhat biased, but we really do think that Stream Go is the right solution for most businesses looking to invest in software to track their deliveries.
Flexible enough to be suited to multiple use-cases. Totally cloud-based and scalable, the solution can grow with your business, or bend to suit demand. Everything about Stream Go – from it’s easy-to-use ePOD solution to its proactive SMS and email notifications, has been designed with your end customers in mind.
With powerful user-focussed software, from just £28 per vehicle, Stream Go can be a cost-effective option too.
Learn more about Stream Go’s delivery tracking software system by scheduling your demo today.