What is delivery management?

Delivery management is the process of transferring deliveries from their point of origin to their final destination. Delivery management is all about process improvement with the ultimate goal of driving down the delivery cost (man hours, vehicles, fuel, missed deliveries, errors) while keeping a high level of customer service. Delivery operations teams leverage a number of tools and strategies for improving their metrics and scaling up their operations.

3 Key areas of focus for delivery management:

0+Dispatchers
0+Annual deliveries
0+Drivers

Route optimization & Automous dispatch

Most SMBs perceive Routing and Delivery management software as a cost. This is a misleading thought as better delivery leads to more sales. Routing software helps you to deliver more, faster and cheaper. It will impact revenue by giving opportunity to sell more and it will impact cost by reducing delivery cost.

10 key features of a robust route optimization and autonomous dispatch system

1. Delivery time window

Optimizing by delivery time will also allow you to meet the customer promised time. The strength of the Amazon delivery-and-returns proposition — and the operational execution of the proposition — has been a critical element in the creation of the customer-loyalty machine that has made Amazon the success it is today.

2. Service time

The time the driver or the worker spends providing a service at a particular location. This is very useful for predictive ETA. Learning about service time can significantly improve the accuracy of ETA.

3. Drivers’ working schedule

Not all the drivers have the same working schedule. When you have 20+ drivers all working at different schedules, the optimization will need to take into account all different to plan deliveries accordingly.

4. Vehicle capacity

The optimization engine should be able to allocate tasks to different types of vehicles according to payload or capacity or number of items it can carry. A van doesn’t have the same capacity as a 7.5t truck. And even trucks have different payloads.

5. Multiple trips

When you have one delivery that takes the full capacity of the vehicle, the optimization engine needs to understand if there are other orders that can be filled that day and if the driver’s working schedule has room for it. It needs to plan the driver’s day out for delivery accordingly.

6. Add priority tasks

Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.

7. Autonomous

Manual intervention for regular and repetitive tasks is useless. Kiffgo’s optimization engine can autonomously retrieve orders from your order management system (e.g., Unleashed) and plan all deliveries without manual inputs.

8. Priority tasks

Kiffgo’s optimization engine understands that some tasks can be more important than others, so it can prioritize some tasks.

9. Set-up time

Set-up time is a variable that takes into account the time required at the depot to get the vehicle ready for delivery or collection (e.g., time required to load the vehicle) at the start of the route.

10. Dynamic ETA recalculation

If required, the dispatcher on Kiffgo platform can rearrange some tasks and get the ETA recalculated in seconds instead of running a complete optimization again.

Seamless communication and real-time ETA

Kiffgo fills in the gaps along the last mile with location-triggered communication workflows, live ETA tracking, two-way customer communications, and real-time feedback.

Step 1: Schedule stage communication

  • Scheduled stage communication
    Plan your delivery or collections days in advance and seamlessly communicate with customers accurate ETA to avoid missed deliveries or collections. Kiffgo notify feature will let you communicate with customers via branded emails, SMS, or web-based URL.

Step 2: On the day communication

  • Delivery/Collection day communication
    Real-time Uber-like driver tracking provides live driver locations with accurate ETAs in a beautiful, branded, and responsive web tracking experience. Waiting for delivery, whether a parcel or wholesale business order, with no transparency into status or ETA is no longer acceptable.

Step 3: At completion communication

  • Email proof of delivery with pic
    Customer not at location and delivery left in back garden? No problem—email them branded proof of delivery with accurate pics. Proof of delivery can include sign-on glass or photographic evidence of where a parcel or B2B delivery has been securely left.

Step 4: Feedback is the breakfast of the champion

  • Get real-time feedback on the delivery experience
    Get a first-hand account of each customer’s experience after their delivery with Kiffgo’s integrated feedback form.

Seamless API integration with 3rd party software and order management system

Kiffgo’s on-demand delivery solution can be used as a standalone or fit on top of pre-existing infrastructure, enriching or replacing its capabilities and enabling more streamlined delivery operations while providing customers with a better delivery experience.

Easy Implementation

Kiffgo’s cloud-based software has a simple and easy-to-grasp interface which allows users and organizations to shorten the learning curve to 1 hour or less. Some systems require costly, time-consuming rollouts with high failure rates, but Kiffgo can be integrated painlessly with easy-to-use APIs whether you have one distribution center or a dozen. Most integrations are already built-in, and in the rare case we don’t support something in your ecosystem, we’ll work with you until we do.