Introduction
No doubt, delivery management is challenging! And when it comes to managing shipments delegated to different carriers, it becomes even more hectic. Maintaining communication throughout the journey, route planning, managing failed deliveries - there is a lot to take care of.
The solution: go for delivery management & tracking software.
It adopts advanced automation technology to help brands manage the delivery process and increase customer loyalty. In this post, we’ll look at some core benefits of using delivery management & tracking software. Let’s start!
But first, what is delivery management & tracking software in eCommerce?
Delivery management & tracking software is a suite of tools that use automation ecommerce technology and help brands manage the entire shipping process in the most streamlined way.
Put simply, this software suite gives you full control of the shipment journey and improves shoppers’ experience. For example, it provides real-time visibility of all your shipments.
Plus, this software sends time-to-time tracking information to customers, helps in route optimization, improves driver performance, and more.
Top 10 benefits of delivery management & tracking software
Now that you know what exactly an eCommerce delivery management software is, let’s dive a bit deeper and evaluate why it’s a must-have in your tech stack.
1) Provides in-depth visibility of the delivery process
Delegating shipments to carriers is easy. The trouble begins when you try to track all the shipments assigned to different carriers.
As each logistics company has its own tracking system, you’ll have to navigate through various tabs to get a single update. And it results in fragmented tracking, inconsistent communication, and delayed delivery issues.
An e-commerce delivery management and tracking solution eliminates these frictions to a great extent. It offers a centralized dashboard where you'll be able to track all the shipments across multiple carriers you’re dealing with. There, it provides real-time shipment statuses like:
- Information received
- Time of dispatch
- Ship date
- Last distribution hubs
- Failed attempt
- and more
A few of these software even offer nitty gritty details (main and sub-statuses), so you don’t miss out on any information. As a result, it eases the tracking process, reduces friction, and helps manage each delivery.
2) Mitigates potential delivery issues beforehand
The first point led us here. As the delivery management and tracking software provides in-depth visibility of the shipping process, you can easily identify any potential delivery issues beforehand. These may include stuck shipments, adverse weather conditions, transportation breakdowns, etc.
Once you know about these challenges, you can immediately take action on them way before your customers know. Sometimes, these solutions also send notifications for shipping delays to customers so they can get rid of their anxiety.
3) Improves brand loyalty with automated notifications
Once a customer pays for an order, the only thing he cares about is when it’ll arrive. As per a recent study, around 96% of customers track their orders and 43% of them monitor their shipments daily.
This means the more transparent you are regarding the tracking information, the more likely they will buy from you next time.
Exactly here, these delivery management & tracking solutions take center stage. Without any human intervention, they send time-to-time tracking notifications to customers at each milestone. Plus, most of them offer customization options so you can personalize these notifications in the shoppers’ native language.
This feature is quite useful to improve customer experience as it keeps them in the loop throughout the process. Simultaneously, it frees up your time so that you can invest it in other important tasks in your eCommerce business.
4) Saves time & costs with efficient route planning
Route optimization is another excellent benefit that’s often considered a secret sauce of delivery success. This e-commerce delivery management software incorporates a Machine Learning (ML) algorithm and other advanced technologies like Geographic Information System (GIS) to fetch the most efficient route to fulfill the orders.
For example, instead of fulfilling an order and moving back to the next location, the drivers can plan routes to fulfill all the orders in a single trip. In fact, this feature also helps them to find paths that have less transportation issues and traffic congestion.
So, if we keep the customer satisfaction part aside, this feature is also beneficial to improve delivery rate and reduce fuel costs.
5) Boosts operational efficiency with smart carrier allocation
Every carrier has its own specialty. While some are good at shipping to remote areas, some carriers are proficient in delivering fragile goods.
Blue Dart, for instance, can reach the remotest area. Likewise, DHL is good at shipping high-value items.
That’s why you need to rely on that particular carrier that will better fulfill your e-commerce delivery. Delivery management and tracking software help in this case, too.
It often integrates a smart carrier allocation engine that smartly allocates the most suitable carrier, which further results in greater eCommerce operational efficiency.
6) Streamlines communication for everyone
The delivery management and tracking tools act as a centralized communication hub for everyone involved in the journey. Not only do these solutions help customers stay updated with the tracking information, but they also keep the drivers, dispatchers, and shippers in the loop.
So, if any sudden adjustment, like route changes, occurs during the in-transit period, everyone can stay aware of that, which mitigates future confusion.
7) Helps acquire more sales with marketing opportunities
The benefits of delivery management and tracking software aren’t limited to shipping only. It also takes care of eCommerce marketing in a strategic way that boosts overall revenue.
How? Oftentimes, these tools provide a branded tracking page like AfterShip; where brands can infuse their brand colors, logos, and social icons. It means these pages are totally customizable. In fact, delivery management and tracking software also allow brands to add product recommendations on tracking pages for cross-selling.
Here’s an example:
8) Reduces the number of failed deliveries and RTO%
Needless to say, failed deliveries and Return to Origin (RTO) are the two most common problems e-commerce brands face. Data fetched from Statista shows that a brand can lose $17.2 in each failed delivery.
To save eCommerce businesses from such problems, a few of these solutions offer an NDR (Non-Delivery Report) management feature. Once the agent marks the delivery as failed, it tries to fetch issue-specific customer feedback and sends it back to the agent. As a result, the delivery becomes successful, and the profit margin remains intact.
9) Centralizes supply-chain activities on a single platform
This delivery management software easily integrates with other platforms like WMS, OMS, storefronts, CRM systems, and returns management solutions. Thus, it gets easier for brands to maintain the supply chain activities in a single place.
Apart from that, these tools also help in taking proof of delivery. To maintain contactless delivery and reduce the paperwork, it takes e-sign, which makes the methods way easier.
10) Helps scale delivery performance with in-depth analytics
To improve carriers’ overall performance, delivery management software provides comprehensive reports. These include in-transit storage analytics, stuck shipments analytics, and failed delivery analytics - among others.
When you have such in-depth reports in hand, you can easily evaluate what’s working, what’s not, and what needs improvement. By incorporating these insights and smart works into your current strategy, you can level up your e-commerce delivery performance to a great extent.
How ClickPost can help you in the delivery management and tracking Process
After checking all the benefits, we’re sure you must be searching for the best delivery management software to opt for. Indeed, that’s a tough job!
Let us help you with that. ClickPost covers all the use cases mentioned in the former section.
For example, it provides an automated shipment tracking system and sends proactive notifications to customers so you can reduce WISMO calls to a great extent.
With ClickPost, you don’t need to visit thousands of tabs to get delivery updates. You can easily monitor all the shipments across all your carriers at a time since we integrate with 350+ carriers worldwide.
Plus, you’ll also get to customize the tracking page with your brand elements to increase consumer loyalty. Smart carrier allocation, streamlined communication, and easy integrations are some additional benefits of ClickPost to help you ace the game.
Plus, it manages each failed delivery in real-time and reduces RTO%. It means you can sit back and invest your time in a new business strategy instead of juggling multiple portals to manage failed deliveries.
Level up your logistics operations with delivery management & tracking software
If you’re still here, it’s better to note that inefficient delivery isn’t sustainable - considering the global same-day delivery market size is going to touch $26.4B by 2027.
You’ll have to seamlessly maintain all the tasks to get an edge over your competitors and retain one-time buyers.
Delivery management & tracking software prove to be a magic wand that will eliminate most delivery frictions and provide a best-in-class shopping experience to customers.
So, go for a top-notch eCommerce delivery management & tracking solution and delegate the manual tasks for better results. Now, if you want to know more about how ClickPost can have your back, book a demo.
FAQs
1) What is delivery management?
Delivery management is the process of efficiently and timely shipping orders from the seller to the end customers. It involves tasks like route optimization, carrier allocation, shipment tracking, and so on.
2) What is the top delivery management software in the market?
When you search for the best delivery management software, you get thousands of options. However, here are our top choices:
- ClickPost
- MetaPack
- ParcelLab
3) Do small businesses need delivery management software?
It doesn’t matter whether you are a small business or an enterprise business; your no.1 goal must be to provide your customers with the best shopping experience. Then only you’ll be able to retain customers and boost your word-of-mouth marketing. Thus, delivery management software is a must.