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Originally Posted On: https://www.bestinfohub.com/top-tips-for-scheduling-deliveries-efficiently

 

According to a recent survey, almost 90% of American consumers said they would be more than willing to pay extra for same-day shipping. When people order products from companies, they want them shipped and delivered ASAP by whatever means necessary.

If you’re always scheduling deliveries for your company, you’ll need to consider this. If you can’t create and stick to fast delivery schedules, you might lose customers quickly.

Coming up with a surefire shipping process will be of the utmost importance. It’ll make it possible for you to commit to a delivery schedule to keep your customers happy.

We’ve compiled a list of small business shipping and delivery tips to make your process more efficient overall. Check them out below.

Start by Gathering the Right Information

To get your products from your company’s facility to your customers, you’ll need your customers’ information. This will include their names, addresses, contact info, etc.

You should have a system in place that’ll allow you to access all this info from your customers quickly so that you can start creating shipping labels immediately. It’ll prevent you from experiencing delays from the start due to misspelled names, incorrect addresses, and other errors.

Be Realistic With Customers About Delivery Schedules

Ideally, you’ll want to be able to start scheduling same-day deliveries to your customers at some point. But if that isn’t realistic right now, don’t force it.

In fact, you shouldn’t even try to force next-day or even two-day shipping to your customers if you can’t do it. You should give them a realistic timeframe for scheduling deliveries and do your best to overdeliver in this department.

By doing this, you might pleasantly surprise many of your customers. You’ll also steer clear of disappointing any of them who will see you as a company that doesn’t take shipping scheduling seriously enough.

Create a Delivery Schedule for Each Day

Your company shouldn’t be in the business of loading up trucks with products and driving them around from one destination to the next with no logical order in place. That’s going to be a recipe for disaster.

Instead, your company should strive to create a delivery schedule each and every day. This delivery schedule will break down all the deliveries that need to be made in a way that will make sense to the driver who has to make them.

It’ll make the shipping and delivery process go smoother for everyone involved. Scheduling deliveries won’t get too chaotic when you have an actual schedule set up for them.

Rely On the Latest Software to Help With Delivery Schedules

Once upon a time, many delivery schedules were produced with little more than a pen and paper. But, as you might imagine, this didn’t always make the best results.

Unfortunately, some companies still take this approach to scheduling deliveries. Rather than doing this, your company should invest in the latest software to create delivery schedules on the fly.

Go take a closer look at some of this field service management software to see just how useful it could be for your company. However, don’t be shy to try out different programs to see which is the best fit for your company before getting a subscription.

Come Up With the Best Delivery Routes

The software you obtain for scheduling deliveries will do most of the heavy lifting when planning out delivery routes. But you might want to have your drivers weigh in on them and make any suggestions they might have.

Your ultimate goal should be having all your drivers drive the quickest routes and encounter the fewest delays. This will ensure all your deliveries are made in a timely fashion.

Report Any Unexpected Delays to Customers

No matter how diligent you are about scheduling deliveries and striving to stick to deadlines, delays will occur from time to time. There won’t be any getting around your drivers running into traffic jams or your packages taking longer to get out the door than you anticipated.

When delays pop up, you should have a system that’ll enable you to notify customers. Customers won’t always be happy to get these delays. But they will appreciate you informing them of delays instead of just looking like you dropped the ball.

Fine-Tune Your Shipping Process All the Time

You aren’t ever going to be able to schedule deliveries as efficiently as you want. There will always be a little room for improvement in your shipping process.

With this in mind, you should make it your mission to fine-tune this process every so often. You can evaluate the process, critique aspects of it, and make changes to it.

You can also keep a close eye on all the latest technology that is being made available to help companies with scheduling deliveries. You don’t want to miss out on anything that could help your company in a huge way.

Use These Tips to Make Scheduling Deliveries Easier

Have your customers let you know you could be doing a much better job when it comes to scheduling deliveries? Or do you know that your company is lacking in this area?

Utilize all the tips found here to change this as quickly as possible. The more efficient your shipping process is, the more likely people will place orders through your company.

Get more business-minded tips and tricks in the other articles posted on our blog and use them to your company’s advantage.