Ways to Improve the On-Time Performance of Your Delivery Service

With so many people spending more time indoors than ever before, it makes sense that there has been a big shift towards delivery services. Businesses that were never traditionally online have now shifted to selling their products and services over the internet, which has been more apparent in the last year. When you are competing with some of the big-name companies out there, you need to find ways of offering a quick and efficient service. This means getting more of your orders delivered on time. Late orders can be extremely frustrating and often lead to no-repeat orders. Taking this into account, here are a few tips to help you improve the on-time performance of your delivery service.

Choose Your Warehouse Locations Wisely

If you can minimize the distance between the warehouse and your customers, it makes sense that this is going to help from a logistical point of view. So, you should select your warehouse locations with care and attention. If you mainly deliver in the local area, try to pick a centralized spot that gives you easy access to most locations. If you are planning on opening up a new warehouse, make sure that you do so strategically.

Keep Realistic Deadlines

While you may want to compete with the bigger companies out there that offer next-day delivery and similar services, this simply may not be possible as a smaller company. Therefore, when you are setting a delivery deadline, you need to ensure that it is realistic. People don’t mind waiting for orders when they are within an allotted deadline but hate it when they are late. There is a balance to be struck between impossible delivery deadlines and a timeline that is simply too relaxed. It takes careful analysis of your supply chain to work out the average time that it takes for customers to receive their orders. While you are conducting this analysis, you can also determine what is slowing you down along the way and how you can address each particular problem.

Do Your Own Deliveries

The delivery phase is often where orders get into trouble. They can easily get held up or lost. One way of addressing this problem is by doing your own deliveries. This way, you have complete control over the process. Obviously, this goal is much easier to achieve if you are delivering in the local area. If you are going to do this, you need some reliable carriers, as well as the latest tech like a route planner app. If you are not able to do this, you need to ensure that you maintain a good working relationship with your delivery partners. Making timely payments is an important aspect of this. You should also provide them with all the requested information. You may have to use one or two different services before you find the one that suits your needs most closely.

Properly Manage Your Stock

The effective management of your stock can also help to play a positive role in increasing the number of on-time deliveries. For example, you need to manage how many of a particular item that you have available. You don’t want to end up in a situation in which you have run out after an order has been placed, as this can lead to disappointment and frustration. Most companies have some sort of electronic system that manages this aspect of the company for them.

Good stock management also means laying out your warehouse properly. This way, the products can be ‘picked’ quickly and efficiently. In larger warehouse environments, it helps to have the machinery access the higher shelves and speed up the entire process. While you may not be able to afford the kind of equipment that the internet giants have, you can still emulate their practices in some ways.

Predict Spikes in Product Sales

Sometimes, spikes in product sales are going to be obvious. For example, you have been having a sale on a particular item. Other times, it may be seasonal. On some occasions, you may experience a rush on a product due to a trend or news story. This is why it is important that you keep up with what is going on in the world. When you know that there is going to be a spike on a product, this is the time to make sure that you have sufficient stock to deal with it. You also need to keep one eye on your ordering system to ensure that it doesn’t get overwhelmed.

Use Real-Time Order Tracking

It is not enough for many modern customers to know that their order is on the way – they also want to know exactly where it is in the journey. Real-time order tracking software can help with this issue and gives customers peace of mind that their deliveries are on the way.

If you can improve the number of orders that arrive on time, you immediately give your business a boost and reassure your customers that you can provide them with exactly what they are looking for. At the same time, you should also be working to speed up the delivery system as a whole.

There are several ways of achieving this goal. First, you need to be organized in stock management, picking, packing, and shipping. You should also partner with reliable delivery companies if you cannot do the job yourself. Plus, you can rely on modern technology such as real-time order tracking to help you out even further. Keep an eye on each of your product lines and try to predict any spikes that are likely to occur. Not only is this important from an on-time ordering perspective, but it also allows you to make the maximum number of sales, as well as boosting your profits as much as possible. However long you take to send your orders, it is important to maintain a sense of realism in setting the deadlines. Otherwise, you are going to end up with disappointed clients.