You may find that your delivery operation struggles with accurate route plans, as well as having a lack of visibility over daily operations, reporting, and long-term performance tracking.
Once a driver leaves for the day, it’s hard to see where they are or how they are progressing. You have no control over the routes they take to make these deliveries or how many deliveries they successfully make. Drivers may have to use paper records or an app that isn't connected to your ERP, which may lead to inaccuracies in pricing, order information, and inventory management. Is your business based on data or guesswork?
Nick Davies, from the OGI Group, has stated that:
"A single view of a business, with the same information available to multiple users, will lead to better profitability, increased productivity, and accurate data for planning purposes."
How can a digital delivery system help you improve order and delivery accuracy?
Every business will have their own processes , which could include vehicle checks and routing. But how do you communicate these rules to enforce them?
With RouteMagic’s vast set up options, you can build a system that suits your workflow, from enforced vehicle checks to end-of-site visit surveys. This allows you to personalise the system, maximizing productivity, and control what your workers can and can't do.
Every business needs to record accurate information, capturing data such as profitability, discounts and promotions. RouteMagic lets you manage complex pricing structures for each customer.
Using RouteMagic, you can configure:
Eliminating errors reduces admin time and keeps accurate records on stock, avoiding shortages,, overstocking of items, pricing errors, and an inability to meet the market demand, which means loss of business and missed opportunities. With RouteMagic’s van sales system, you can automate stock and delivery status updates, and adjustments to order totals that include returns, wastage, and up-sold items.
RouteMagic van sales system takes care of whitelist/blacklist products with the ability to create/implement product lists. You can define product lines by creating product lists, and the system will ensure drivers do not accidentally sell products to customers that you cannot get paid for. This removes the chance of manual error early on and ensures tighter stock control along with overall improved visibility and inventory management.
Having a system that allows you to control the discount offered by your delivery drivers will remove mistakes and allow your= to maximise sales when at a customers, meaning no more calls to the office to gain authorisation..
The bottom line is that unreliable reporting methods are risky, and could lead to miscalculations that are costly for business.
Integrated electronic proof of delivery apps are far more than just for delivery confirmations nowadays.
They are integrated with a back-office system that helps to keep product and order information, as well as pricing structures, updated, so all of the team can access them whenever they need.
What does this mean for your drivers at the point of delivery?
Drivers can arrive at a customer, with an app that tells them exactly what the customer wants. They can easily adjust quantities, with stock and cost adjustments being taken care of by the app automatically. The app will show the driver the price range they are able to sell each product at, as well as present white and blacklist products to them. Once a POD has been taken, these records are updated on the app and the office immediately, and any anomalies or unusual cost or stock adjustments will be flagged to make sure any mistakes are corrected then and there.
Endnote
This is the fourth in a series of articles based on optimising van sales performance, which aims to show you how you can improve van sales management with RouteMagic’s technical prowess, for business growth.
Once you achieve the accuracy level that will drive your business to a consistently high return at all times, next you need to focus on mustering complete control over other aspects of your van sales. RouteMagic has been around for over 20 years now, providing solutions for a range of industries, sectors, and business models. We support over 100 customers and thousands of daily users, continuously improving our software to alleviate a range of challenges.
