Understanding Courier Management

With the rapid growth of eCommerce, efficient delivery is a primary concern for companies who continuously seek ways to reduce shipping costs and control their customer experience.

Having an in-house courier is the best way to achieve this. It’s doubtful that a third-party courier service will care more about your products and customers than you. However, there is a lot to consider if you choose to run your own delivery operation.

For effective courier management, you need to understand the basics, spot areas that need improvement, and an easy-to-use courier management system.

What is courier management?

Courier management is the planning and executing of the goods delivery. Typically, courier managers are responsible for scheduling deliveries, assigning them to couriers, overseeing the operations of couriers in the field, and suggesting strategic improvements. This process may also comprise specific fleet management responsibilities in a larger business, including fuel management and vehicle maintenance.

Courier management objectives

The three main objectives of courier management are:

• Delivering products to customers.
• Supporting the couriers delivering the products.
• Ensuring customers have a positive buying experience to facilitate return business.

Each of these goals has its challenges. For example, deliveries are often time-sensitive, and products may be fragile. In addition, traffic, difficulty in locating addresses, and customers who aren’t available to receive their deliveries are just a few of the obstacles couriers face in the field.

Quick and efficient product delivery

Delivery of orders quickly and ensuring the contents are undamaged is essential to the success of your business. To deliver products quickly and efficiently, there are a few key considerations.

• Safe transportation: While couriers aren’t responsible for packaging goods, they must ensure the products are protected during transport. As a result, you may need to invest in specialised solutions like insulated bags for food storage, cushioned packaging for fragile goods, etc.
• Meeting delivery deadlines consistently: A significant number of online shoppers say fast delivery defines a positive experience. Consequently, courier managers need to optimise delivery routes, assign deliveries according to priority, and take every step to optimise delivery speed.
• Drive efficiently: Courier route optimisation software is beneficial in calculating the most efficient routes in a flash. It could also assist with fuel management. Decrease your fleet cost and increase courier efficiency by maintaining delivery vehicles and ensuring couriers use fuel-efficient driving techniques.

Maximising courier work capacity

Couriers are the only brand representative online customers meet. As your most valuable asset, you should support them however you can to enable them to perform their best. Among other things, this includes optimising their routes.

• Clear and easy-to-follow routing instructions: Through your courier management software, this eliminates spending time to programme each address into their GPS, instead allowing them to drive to their next destination quickly. Courier software provides drivers with turn-by-turn navigation from their preferred routing app.
• Schedule appropriate driver breaks: Courier software makes it easy to automatically schedule beaks for your drivers to have the least impact on their route and ensure they are refreshed and comfortable.

Premium customer experiences

Every step in the logistics supply and last-mile delivery chain moves you toward the ultimate goal of delivering an outstanding customer experience. Delivering products safely and on time are likely to result in a good customer experience.

• Provide accurate delivery ETAs: Courier management software can provide customers with real-time delivery status updates, allowing them to plan their own activities better.
• Contingency plans: Your courier strategy should always put the customer first. Despite the live tracking, there may be instances when the customer isn’t available to receive the delivery. Your contingency plan should assist the courier in determining the appropriate steps. For example, they could call the customer to ask for instructions.

The courier management process can always be improved. By frequently reviewing how you execute your service, you can continuously look for areas of improvement.

Benefits of a courier management system

A courier management system can give you a competitive edge by streamlining several tasks:

• Planning and optimising delivery routes
• Courier scheduling and tracking
• Courier performance analysis
• Package tracking
• Updating customers

Contact Winfreight For Details

The Winfreight Freight Management System and Courier Software offer your business a turnkey solution to manage, streamline, and economise every node of your supply chains. Our courier company software is specifically designed as a comprehensive solution to control the flow of information.

If you would like to know more about how our courier management software can enhance your business, get in touch with a representative from Winfreight today.