It’s never too early to prepare for the holiday season — especially if you’re leading a last-mile operation.
New research indicates that around half of U.S. shoppers are likely to begin their holiday shopping before Halloween. Traditionally, all arrows pointed toward the day after Thanksgiving as the start of the holiday season. Some still adhere to this unspoken rule, but anyone who has online shopped or frequented a store can see how early businesses prepare for the holiday season. Halloween shelves are quickly replaced with holiday-season merriment in the form of products, confirming that fleet management leaders should be preparing for the holiday season as soon as possible. Last-mile delivery during the holiday season and beyond opens a critical window for you to connect your solutions, streamlining the way you do business on one platform. Here’s how you can make the most of holiday shipping this year.
Last-mile delivery during the holiday season and beyond opens a critical window for you to connect your solutions, streamlining the way you do business on one platform. Here’s how.
Last-Mile Routing Before Wheels Are in Motion
If you’re a last-mile routing leader during the holiday trucking season, you may likely have ample historical delivery and transportation data at your disposal. When you have this data in one area, you can gain actionable insights into your fleet, driver, and customer needs months or even up to a year in advance, preparing the resources you’ll need during the busy holiday season or the post-holiday lull.
Once you get closer to executing individual route plans, you can use intelligent routing algorithms to set up the best routes for each driver, taking critical factors into account—including traffic patterns and customer needs. Best of all, you can work on those oh-so-familiar last-minute orders that could otherwise throw a wrench in your driver’s day-to-day.
Omnitracs Routing Solutions
Last-mile drivers must keep track of excess order quantities during the holiday shipping season, so your priority will be enabling them to succeed in a way that doesn’t feel complicated or cumbersome.
In addition to utilizing video safety solutions and creating stop-by-stop task lists, you can create a satisfactory driver experience with Omnitracs’ routing software by:
- Improving communication between drivers and dispatchers, so both parties have proper visibility and aren’t struggling to communicate with one another
- Eliminating paper logs and sending the data you need from your device on the road to your back-office quickly
- Ensuring customers stay aware of their order status and updates with proactive notifications that free up your phone lines from repetitive “Where’s my order?” calls
- Integrating your technology with a portfolio of various solutions and applications
- Sending arrival and departure notifications to your back-office automatically
- Utilizing modern proof of delivery functionalities, so drivers can collect signatures, scan barcodes, and take delivery photos on the go
- Providing immediate access to up-to-date driver workflow and route events for better trip management
Holiday Trucking: Making the Most of the Season
The holiday shipping season can open many insights into your last-mile routing operation. The beauty of connecting your solutions on one platform is you have all your vital data flowing through a single source of truth.
When you have all your reliable transportation data in one place, you can transform it into meaningful views of business performance and obtain key performance indicators (KPIs). With valuable data, comprehensive visibility, and a holistic last-mile delivery strategy, you can give your holiday trucking team the gift of a successful season.
Learn how to further enhance your holiday trucking operations with digital transformation by exploring our solutions or giving us a call.
May your deliveries be merry and bright!