Top 5 Challenges in Last-mile Delivery and A Better Way to Overcome

At present, doorstep delivery is a habitual practice for many businesses in many distinctive industries from grocery to medicine and others. However, in common, the process of delivery to customers can be known as “last-mile delivery”. Such last-mile delivery must be done in a quick, safe, and cost-effective manner. 

Meantime, the delivery persons are facing some issues/challenges in providing effective delivery services. For example, 

• They’re struggling to drive through high traffic and reach their destination on time,
• Hard to plan a delivery route plan and optimize it manually,
• In the case of multi-stop delivery, they have trouble in coordinating,
• Possibility of getting lost while driving on new routes, 
• It’s hard to ensure customer satisfaction. 

So, let’s talk about these challenges and how delivery planner software can help delivery persons to overcome them in this blog. 

Challenge #1 Driving Through High Traffic

In most countries, especially in their urban areas, the level of traffic on the road is extremely high. Sometimes it takes hours to cross the traffic. Driving through the lengthy traffic may waste a whole day. So, it’s good to avoid such traffic. But how to do it? Here the need for delivery planner management apps/software raises. 

A typical delivery planner software can help you in this case. As it provides real-time traffic insight, you can avoid the traffic routes in advance. Instead of choosing a path filled with horn sounds and dust, you can choose an alternative path. 

The delivery planner software can also suggest alternative routes. It’s possible by integrating third-party API for mapping and real-time route navigation. Thus you can eliminate the first challenges in this list. 

Challenge #2 Hard to Plan Manually

When you’re running a parcel delivery service, you may have multiple drop-off locations for each trip. In this case, you need a rock-solid delivery plan that connects each drop-off location within a short distance. Planning this manually may take an hour to consider each constraint. At the same time, a minor mistake can cause a huge error in the workflow. But need not worry, you can avoid this error by automating this time-taking process with delivery route planning software.

Simply, by entering the list of destinations or drop-off locations you can get the delivery route plan for single or multiple drivers instantly. As it’s completely done by effective and complex algorithms you can rely on the delivery plan. 

The best part is, you can manage and organize the delivery persons to follow the delivery plan by integrating the delivery planner software with a mobile app solution.

Challenge #3 Trouble in Coordinating

Everything doesn’t need to go as per the plan during the delivery process. Maybe one or two drivers may face a situation to choose alternative routes. In this situation, they have to change their delivery plan that is compatible with the new route. 

In this situation, they have to coordinate with the admin and co-delivery person who already travels on the alternative route (if any). But there is a possibility of miscommunication during this process. 

When you have delivery planner software, it’s easy to communicate with other delivery persons and admin. It has in-app communication features to ease this process. Alongside this, the software can automatically revamp the delivery route plan corresponding to the new route. It can also suggest the shortest way to reach the destination. Though, you can avoid this barrier. 

Challenge #4 Possibility of Getting Lost 

When your drivers go through new areas or remote areas there is a possibility of getting lost. Despite, finding them back is not a big deal with recent technologies it delays the delivery process for hours. At the same time, the safety of the delivery person is also an important factor to consider. 

With the delivery software planner, the drivers can access the map location and easily find the right way to deliver the parcel. In case of any emergency, they can send SOS messages to multiple numbers by tapping a single button. These features of the delivery planner software ensure safety in the delivery process. 

Challenge #5 Ensuring Customer Satisfaction

The last-mile delivery is one of the factors of customer satisfaction. Any customer who orders groceries, medicine, or any other things is expecting their parcels as soon as possible. So, timely delivery is more important for last-mile delivery. The timely delivery can be measurable with ETA (Estimate Time of Arrival). So, accurate ETA is essential to ensure customer satisfaction.

With the rock-solid delivery route planner, you can get the in-built ETA that can calculate the accurate estimated time. 

Simply, you need a compatible delivery planner software for your business to tackle real-time challenges in last-mile delivery. In case you’re searching for such a software solution, then know more about a customized solution and how SpotnRides can help you.

Custom Delivery Planner Software: A Better Way to Overcome

We at SpotnRides are well-known for customized delivery planner software globally. As we are providing customized solutions, it’s compatible with your business needs and it works more than your expectations. 

• It has accurate ETA calculation algorithms,
• Real-time tracking facility,
• In-app communication features,
• SOS options for emergency purposes,
• Customer app and driver app with admin panel,
• In-app proof of delivery feature, and others.

Need to include any unique features? We can include anything on your demand! Contact us for more details and FREE consulting!