How Courier Businesses Are Finally Getting Ahead of Their Workload
Courier companies have always been hectic to manage. Drivers needed guidance, an office would have clients asking where their packages were, dispatch would be scrambling with who should pick up what and who was available when. Most of the time, it felt as if you were just trying to catch up. Now, however, with some courier companies, it’s a different story. They are more ahead of their workload than ever before. Go inside a well-oiled machine and it feels calmer, cooler, and collected as if no one is rushing around like a chicken with their head cut off.
It’s important to note that courier companies today are busier than ever before. They are processing and delivering more packages than in any previous decades. But they aren’t as worn down and overwhelmed by it all. They’re ahead of their workload because of increased internal efficiencies.
When More Work Isn’t More Stress
It’s been heard before: when a courier company gets busy, it’s a curse, not a blessing. More phones ringing mean more dispatchers needed, more scheduling means more administrative staff for paperwork, more managers to keep everyone on the same page. It was one thing to increase revenue, but once a courier company got too busy—which ironically was only sometimes the goal for growth—it became too much stress for the same amount of staffing.
The solution? Hire more people. More dispatchers, more admin staff, more managers. Your revenue grows, your expenses grow and it becomes an unmanageable beast.
Until now. Modern courier software allows for much more involvement without the stress because they facilitate much of what needs to go on before the human team gets involved. This means that loads of additional work can be taken on without people losing their jobs—people are still working but the majority of repetitive work is being handled behind the scenes leaving crucial mind power available for other important developments.
The Importance of the Morning
Mornings dictate the entire day. Think about it—the way a day starts off is a precursor for how successful (or not) things will go. Take the morning from the antiquated courier company where dispatch is frantically on the phone with all drivers trying to explain their routes and assignments while simultaneously compiling real-time changes. By the time the first driver leaves for their morning shift, they’re ten steps behind because everyone was rushing to get out the door.
Now think about the courier company that embraces modern sensibilities; Drivers are checking their routes as they’ve been assigned and already planned courtesy of an online tool when they arrive at the dispatch center. They already have their entire day figured out on their phone based on an app’s foresight. They’re in and out within ten minutes if there are no changes—allowing for an efficient start to the day.
That ten minutes adds up over the long run in addition to the morale boost everyone gets when they’re not pushing rush hour traffic just to see what assignments await them within a busy morning before coffee even kicks in.
When Customers Stop Asking Where Their Packages Are
Customer service was a time suck for any courier company. A driver had to call someone asking where their package was, then that person needed to either call the driver back or try to get information themselves; regardless, five or ten minutes was wasted trying to cater to each person’s request. Add in that there were dozens of such calls per day just from deliveries and people’s unmitigated curiosity about when packages would be there but not ever directed malice or disrespect, and you have a huge need for customer service at the expense of actual service needed for delivery.
Enter automated tracking systems that allow both customers and employees to know where a package is at all times with no one needing to talk to anyone. Even if a customer needs to check in with someone, the team member can pull up an online map within seconds instead of minutes thanks to internal access as opposed to every client needing a backup.
This frees up your customer service support team members to manage crises instead of just reporting statuses. When someone calls now it’s about needing something changed or something truly existed—and those calls can be respected as they’re no longer bogged down by status updates daily.
Route Planning That Makes Sense
Route planning delivery optimization seems easy until it’s time to do so. You’ve got so many doors, time windows, drivers available and schedules in addition to traffic patterns, sizes of packages and a million other variables that if you do it manually you’re bound to waste hours on planning that still doesn’t pan out.
But here’s the thing: route optimization works and incredible systems are actually good at it. They have algorithms that can take into consideration everything a human dispatcher would take ages to figure out—accounting for traffic conditions, reassigning pickups and deliveries without backtracking and creating timelines that make geographical sense.
Does it mean every route is perfect? No—but as real life would have it events occur. At least you’re starting from a good baseline. You’re not zig-zagging around town for no reason—you’re cutting back on time because you’re arriving at pick-up spots while they’re still open; you’re making sense of routes where drivers can complete more deliveries within the same amount of time without rushing.
The Part Where Everyone Knows What’s Going On
One of the biggest problems for couriers is everyone failing to communicate what they knew. Dispatch knew one thing, drivers knew something else, clients had another thing entirely on their minds. It required constant communication to get everyone on the same page—and even then, everything fell through the cracks.
Enter real time information sharing which eliminates this problem. Someone’s running late? Dispatch knows first while all drivers do now too. A pick-up was scheduled somewhere else? Dispatch gives all drivers another location immediately without change because everything connected online.
Likewise, management can see how things are going without micromanaging them all at every moment; should changes arise, they can see problems occurring before they’re emergencies while drivers themselves feel supported because someone else knows what they’re doing instead of working in isolation.
Growing Without Breaking Everything
The true test of any operational system comes when you’re required to grow from it. Can you manage 30 deliveries instead of 15? Can you add new drivers and have them productive in three days instead of one week? Can you add on new areas without starting from scratch?
Good operating systems prove that they can grow in a way manual processes cannot. It’s not twice as hard to add your second driver than it is your twentieth; it’s easy to configure once you realize someone else knows just what to do.
Currently, those companies ahead are those who’ve set themselves up from the beginning with systems that are easily scalable versus hard drilled practical applications without understanding practical digital needs that make sense with data science.
What This Means Moving Forward
The courier industry isn’t going anywhere anytime soon—and realistically it’ll only get busier and more competitive. Customers want delivery faster than ever at a lower price point than ever yet with higher transparency and better communication than before.
At the same time that expenses continue rising higher than they have in years—and acquiring good drivers year after year proves harder—courier companies thriving aren’t working harder than everyone else, they’re working smarter!
They’ve built companies where the technology handles routine work and their trained professionals can rely on decisions based on easy-to-understand needs—and that’s how everyone can get ahead finally.
It means that people don’t have to work longer hours or constantly hire more people for every new responsibility from package pickup versus setting up systems that let them achieve more with what they already have.
The technology exists to make it happen, now it’s your turn!
