When running delivery businesses, there are so many factors to take into consideration to get the timing of drop-offs just right: delivery time windows, driver availability, traffic, and distance (to name a few). And we all know the headaches that can ensue if your team gets to your clients too late or too early.
The best way to avoid dealing with displeased customers is to start planning multiple delivery routes, a solution that helps deliver goods or services efficiently–and on time!–to multiple locations.
While you can absolutely be a manual multiple delivery route planner, the decision to adopt an app or route planning software may come down to just how much time you can devote to it, as it can become a complex and time-consuming riddle to solve, especially as the number of delivery locations increases.
By using specialized software, like Maptive, to optimize routes with multiple delivery stops, businesses can save time, reduce costs, and–most importantly–ensure customer satisfaction by completing deliveries reliably on time.
Planning itineraries for multiple deliveries can be especially useful for companies in industries such as food and beverage, maintenance, retail, and logistics that need to make multiple deliveries daily.
Table of Contents
Multiple delivery route planning aims to optimize how goods and services are delivered. It is done by planning multiple routes with multiple stops and distributing shipments, or service teams, across those routes.
At its core, it involves:
Several factors go into the fine art of planning and optimizing routes for your delivery teams:
One of the primary benefits of becoming a route planner is reducing transportation costs. Especially if you have multiple delivery vehicles, by optimizing your teams’ routes, you can give them turn-by-turn directions that will save money on gas–which is especially impactful given recent hikes in fuel prices–as well as vehicle maintenance and driver wages.
More importantly, once you can create the optimal route for every delivery, you will see your customer satisfaction skyrocket and complaints plummet because your deliveries will be reliably on time every time.
Overall, planning multiple delivery routes can be critical to logistics and supply chain management. Once you’ve optimized routes and resources, you can not just improve your bottom line but also meet the needs of your customers at a whole other level.
Using mapping software to plan the most efficient route for your delivery or service team can help you free up your time and sanity by relieving the stress of constantly checking for traffic updates and calculating distances between clients.
Could you use a Google Maps route planner? that depends on how much time you can have to plan routes, generate driving directions, optimize routes with unlimited stops, and find the best route every time without the help of route planner apps or route planner software.
Maptive is a powerful route-planning software offering various features to help businesses optimize their shipping and logistics routes.
One of its key features is multi-stop route optimization, which considers delivery times, distances, and traffic to create the most efficient delivery schedule.
Maptive also offers real-time traffic updates, which can help drivers avoid delays and get to their destinations faster.
Thanks to its geocoding capabilities and ease of use, Maptive also empowers companies of all sizes to reduce mileage, improve delivery times, and increase delivery capacity–all without requiring any coding or technical knowledge.
No matter the size of your business, you will find that adopting a full-featured mapping software like Maptive is the best solution for managing multi-stop routes.
The key reasons include the following:
How to Get Started with Maptive
You can start using Maptive today, here’s how:
In a nutshell, Maptive can be a complete game-changer when it comes to managing multiple routes.
With advanced features like multi-stop route optimization, real-time traffic updates, and geocoding, Maptive offers businesses a wide range of benefits, such as helping lower transportation costs, boosting efficiency, and increasing customer satisfaction.
You can start using Maptive today, and in just a few simple steps, you can experience how it can help take your delivery operations to the next level.
Sign up for a free trial or visit the Maptive website to learn more about this powerful mapping software.
Fred Metterhausen is a Chicago based computer programmer, and product owner of the current version of Maptive. He has over 15 years of experience developing mapping applications as a freelance developer, including 12 with Maptive. He has seen how thousands of companies have used mapping to optimize various aspects of their workflow.