Transport management is a crucial aspect of the shipping service business. Your business will not be able to operate without your transportation. Managing transportation is not just doing routine maintenance, but it also involves various other aspects such as back office, financial analysis, and the use of software such as service ERP software. To help optimize transportation management in your logistics business, here are five practical tips for you!
Table of Content:
Table of Content
1. Evaluate Your Business Performance
First of all, you need to evaluate your transport management to find out the aspects that need improvement. Evaluate the performance of your couriers, the condition of your vehicles, the delivery routes, how you can use diesel fuel cards to save money, and so on.
A complete evaluation will make it easier for you to optimize efficiency. Find out what factors contribute to high expenses. Were they caused by the wrong shipping routes? Does your fuel consumption cost you the most? Or is the excess expenditure caused by all the compensation costs incurred due to courier negligence?
Analyze the shipping method that you use, and figure out whether the method is truly effective or not. Find out what your customers mostly complain about. To optimize your services, consider conducting a customer satisfaction survey regularly. To help you maximize your service, consider creating a customer satisfaction survey using Survey Management Software.
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2. Add Value to Your Services
You must notice that nowadays almost all logistics businesses are competing to improve their services to become the customer’s first choice. You should take the time to find out what value you can add to your services. Instead of providing low shipping costs, you can provide other benefits such as private service, on demand delivery service, priority freight, multiple transportation types, or more options for shipping duration. By having added value, it will be reasonable for you to increase your shipping costs.
3. Build a Good Collaboration Between the Front & Back Offices
Your couriers are responsible for delivering orders to the final destinations. However, it is the back office that is in charge of providing complete information to the couriers and helping resolve any delivery issues. Thus, both the front and back offices must be able to work hand in hand.
To build a great collaboration among your sales, marketing, customer service, logistics, and shipping teams, consider having a centralized system that allows all the departments to share and make use of information. ERP software provides this convenience.
ERP software makes it easy for the sales team to get complete information about clients without having to meet the marketing team in person. The logistics team can find out about the delivery request without having to directly talk to the sales team.
Your couriers can also directly access information related to shipping through the system. ERP software also allows the back office to track the whereabouts of the couriers so that various issues that lead to delays can get identified and solved immediately.
4. Use an Automated Transport Management System
Managing transportation in a logistics business is probably complicated, especially if you still rely on manual methods and do not utilize smart traffic management system. They make it impossible to track each driver or ensure the timeliness and safety of each shipment. An automated transport management system allows you to manage and monitor all the processes involved from one place.
In exploring cost-effective methods for managing your logistics business, consider leveraging partnerships with owner-operator trucking companies. These entities offer a flexible fleet expansion without the capital investment of additional vehicles and introduce operations efficiencies thanks to their independent status and direct interest in maximizing profitability.
The transport management system allows you and the back office to easily track the whereabouts of the drivers, assign couriers, find out which vehicles are operating and which ones are unused, monitor fuel costs spent on each vehicle, and view travel history. All those processes can be done at the same time through a single system. You can also generate real-time analytic reports related to the income generated from the use of your transportation
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5. Perform Routine Checks
Transport management is not complete without maintenance. Routine checks are crucial because your business relies on each of your transportation. If your vehicles got damaged, shipments can’t process.
Periodic maintenance can prevent damage to your transportation. It can also extend its life span. Performing routine checks also helps reduce costs, because repairing damaged vehicles or buying new ones is more expensive than maintaining your existing vehicles.
Your transportation is a very valuable asset, so it is critical to carry out inspections and maintenance consistently. To facilitate these activities, consider using an automated asset management system. With this system, you will be able to schedule maintenance, perform routine checks, assign inspectors, and view the logs of your transportation conditions more easily.
Conclusion
You can use the tips given above to help your business operations run smoothly. Your transportation is a very valuable asset in your business, so it is important to carry out inspections and maintenance consistently. So, your delivery service business will always be in excellent condition and ensure continuity and smooth running of it.
To simplify the process of safeguarding your business and company assets, consider using an Asset Management System. With this, you will be able to schedule maintenance, carry out inspections, assign inspection teams, and view the history of the condition of your entire transportation more easily. The system that is integrated with the Sales System can also facilitate the process of purchasing new assets within budget from quality vendors. Schedule a free demo now to experience the transformational power it brings to your operations.
