Accurate delivery tracking is essential for any business managing deliveries in their own vehicles – or those of sub-contractors and 3PL providers.
In the past, delivery tracking would involve aligning GPS data with clunky map software, contacting drivers to ask where they were, and old-fashioned guesswork.
But now that Stream Go is integrated with Google Maps, delivery tracking via GPS is viewable directly in a mapping system that you’re probably familiar with.
What else can you do with Stream and Google Maps?
Using the Google Maps integration means that Stream Go users can not only track deliveries using Google Maps, but they can also use the integration to plan and optimise routes, keep customers up-to-date on delivery progress, and navigate drivers all in the familiar Google Maps interface.
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Route Planning and Optimisation
Stream Go’s Google Maps integration enabled the improved route optimisation options in the Advanced Planning module. When entering a delivery address manually, Google Maps allows planners to search (and accurately find) addresses by business name, postcode or even just part of an address.
Planners can also view the map and the street view all in one place, so they can easily and accurately identify the delivery location. Viewing the exact delivery address via street view can help to negate access issues too.
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Customer Communication
Google Maps also allows you to better communicate with customers. Live traffic is viewable in the planning screen on the day of delivery, so predicted arrival times are much more accurate, and potential issues can be communicated directly to the customer, minimising the risk of missed deliveries due to traffic.
In the tracking screen, customers can view their address in Google Maps. As this is a format that is likely to be familiar to them, it makes it even easier for customers to spot and flag delivery address issues. More accurate delivery time estimates (thanks to live traffic updates) are also available to customers in the tracking screen.
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Driver Navigation
Once drivers have selected their route in the Stream Mobile Driver App they are able to click through to Google Maps for navigation. Driving instructions are based on google maps, so drivers can follow live routeing from their smartphones (like a sat nav), in a format they are likely used to. Google Maps navigation also helps drivers to take the fastest routes, by updating based on live traffic updates.
Why Google Maps is a great way to plan and track deliveries
The integration with Google Maps has made huge improvements to the planning, optimisation and tracking functionality of Stream Go.
By using Google’s Geolocation functionality, addresses and postcodes are far easier to accurately pinpoint during routing. Google Maps offers the best coverage in terms of being able to quickly find locations and to convert from a postcode to a geocode.
In addition to the use of search facilities and Streetview in planning, Google Maps speeds up the process of Stream Go’s Advanced Planning functionality is by offering planners a mapping service that is likely to be familiar to them, as well as simply being much faster at working out routes than other mapping services.
Stream Go and Google Maps can accurately calculate ETAs based on live traffic updates, as well as on the number of deliveries on a route, and then track those deliveries via the app.
To learn more about Stream Go and Google Maps, and to see the functionality in action, request a live online demo at a time to suit you.
