Supercharge your logistics and customer experience with Elite EXTRA’s last mile solutions. Learn how we can help make the last mile the last thing you have to worry about.
What Is a Last Mile Solution?
A last mile solution is a kind of business software meant to help manage various aspects of the last mile delivery process. The last mile is the final leg of your logistics when the package is delivered to the customer.
The last mile requires specialized software solutions due to the unique nature of the process. It’s the most complex, expensive, and challenging part of the supply chain. To get last mile delivery right, you need solutions purpose-built for the process.
How Do Last Mile Solutions Work?
Elite EXTRA has a full suite of last mile solutions built to help your last mile go the EXTRA mile. They streamline your logistics workflows to help you increase speed, quality, profits, and customer satisfaction.
Request a demo to see our last mile solutions in action!
Routing & Dispatch
Our Routing and Dispatch solution is built to plan the best routes and get them to your drivers, but it’s so much more than that. Here’s how it works.
- Connect: Integrate Elite EXTRA’s Routing & Dispatch Software into your existing business solutions for one seamless workflow.
- Route: Use business rules to tell the software how you want your routes planned. Do you prioritize time, distance, cost, customer time slots, and/or preferred carriers/drivers? Teach it to route-plan your way. Then stand back and watch as it finds the most efficient route every time. If circumstances change, it will reroute to factor in real-time traffic data, road closures, and more.
- Dispatch: The optimized route will be sent to the right carrier based on your criteria. It can use factors like delivery clusters, time constraints, driver workload, and vehicle capacity to make the right choice every time.
- Inform: The software will also automatically send delivery ETAs and update notifications to keep your customers in the loop.
- Fulfill: Our software and driver mobile app will walk drivers through the routes, send them reroute updates, and even walk them through your preferred proof of delivery (POD) process. Plus, with real-time driver tracking, you’ll always know where every driver and package is.
- Manage: Use our Business Reports and Analytics to gather powerful logistics data and make data-driven decisions for better results.
Delivery Network
Our Delivery Network software is designed to give you access to more carriers and drivers, help you expand your delivery area, and allow you to deliver faster and better than before.
- Integrate: Our Delivery Network software integrates seamlessly with our other solutions — and yours. Simply add it to access the nation’s top carriers and crowdsourced delivery fleets like DoorDash and Uber. Best of all, you don’t need individual contracts for every carrier. Our platform lets you manage your carrier relationships and payments easily from one place.
- Compare: Easily see price and delivery time comparisons for your preferred carriers side-by-side to make the choice easier.
- Dispatch: Our Routing and Dispatch software will take it from there.
- Automate: Want to save time? Let the system automatically choose the right provider as orders come in from your ERP or eCommerce solution based on your criteria and priorities.
Returns Automation
Returns are such a headache, and a costly one at that. Our Returns Automation solution was created to save you time and money while making the process easier, more efficient, and less of a hassle for you and your customers. Here’s a step-by-step look at how it works.
- Request: Customers send a request to return an order via your own eCommerce site or Elite EXTRA’s customer-facing web portal within the Returns Automation dashboard to start the process.
- Authorize: Program our Returns Automation software with your return policy via our simple and intuitive rules engine to allow automatic authorizations and denials. Want more control? Choose to authorize and deny requests manually.
- Pickup: When you have all three solutions, our last mile delivery solutions work seamlessly together. Routing and Dispatch can automatically send pickup orders to the best carrier option through the Delivery Network to make your reverse logistics one seamless, automated process.
- Verify: Once the product has been confirmed as returned and resalable, the Returns Automation dashboard can be updated and the customer will be automatically notified of their returns status.
- Restock: If the product can be sold again, restock it and update your inventory to reflect the change.
- Manage: The returns dashboard acts as a single source of truth for all your returns data. This allows you to view all returns, statuses, and customer credits, so you’ll always have the information you need.
Learn more about the use cases of returns automation in our white paper.
Top Last Mile Delivery Challenges
The last mile is by far the most challenging part of the entire supply chain. Every other step of the logistics process is less complex and expensive.
You can ship materials and products to stores and warehouses in bulk. Several orders can be shipped at once from your location to a hub or carrier in a given state or area.
However, the last mile requires delivering a single order to a customer’s doorstep. It means less highway travel and more residential streets which is less fuel efficient, it takes more time to get to each customer, and it takes a lot of variables to plan efficient routes to get multiple deliveries to several individual customers in the most logical manner.
The last mile is just more challenging. Here are some of the top specific challenges retailers face.
Cutting Costs without Sacrificing Quality
It’s estimated that the last mile accounts for between 41% and over 50% of the average businesses total logistics costs. That’s a hefty sum of money. Businesses can’t afford to let that number get out of control. It’s vital to do everything possible to keep last mile costs low.
However, if you aren’t careful, cutting costs can lead to cutting corners. Delivery is a substantial part of customer experience and a huge factor in customer satisfaction. You must find ways to cut costs without lowering delivery service quality.
Watch our webinar on maximizing last mile profits and keeping costs low.
Increasingly High Customer Expectations
Customer expectations are often set by the biggest companies. Unfortunately, that leaves everyone else to compete based on the bar set by the top retail and eCommerce giants.
That means finding ways to keep offering faster and cheaper (preferably free) delivery options to your customers without the seemingly infinite resources that the biggest players seem to have.
Unique Difficulty of City and Rural Deliveries
The last mile means navigating rural and metropolitan areas and the unique challenges they present. Cities and suburbs present issues of traffic gridlock, limited parking, and regulations regarding which vehicles can travel on which roads.
Customers who live out in the country don’t present those same issues. However, some rural areas have huge distances between neighbors making the travel distance much farther between customers. It can also mean navigating dirt or gravel roads and dealing with addresses that are hard to find and/or difficult to reach.
Avoiding Late and Failed Deliveries
Late deliveries lead to unhappy customers, especially if they aren’t properly and promptly informed about upcoming delays. This is especially hard on eCommerce businesses for which delivery is the only physical touchpoint with the customer.
Failed deliveries occur when the driver can’t deliver the package due to inaccurate information, inability to find or reach the address, or the customer not being home when a signature is required for proof of delivery. Sometimes, this can’t be avoided. However, often it’s just a matter of proper communication.
Failed deliveries are a huge annoyance to customers and costly for businesses. The package must be rescheduled and delivered another time, doubling the delivery and time cost.
Why Elite EXTRA’s Last Mile Software Is the Solution
Elite EXTRA’s Last Mile Delivery Solutions have everything you need to rise to these challenges and solve the problems they present.
Deliver Faster for Less with Route Optimization
Elite EXTRA’s last mile solutions provide automatic route optimization to ensure every route is designed for the fastest deliveries and lowest costs. You save time by avoiding manual routing and getting the best route every time.
You also avoid wasted driver time with real-time tracking and data, which sees traffic jams, road closures, detours, and other obstacles in advance and re-optimizes the route to avoid them. Then it automatically sends the driver the updated route.
Meet and Exceed Customer Expectations
Customers always want faster and cheaper. With Elite EXTRA’s last mile solutions, you can access the nation’s top carriers and the top crowdsourced fleets to offer your customers two-day, same-day, and on-demand delivery options without paying exorbitant prices or dealing with dozens of contracts.
Elite EXTRA’s Last Mile Solutions Account for Rural- and City-Specific Variables
Let our software do the work for you. Our Routing and Dispatch software has advanced mapping capabilities to find the ideal route while accounting for traffic patterns, parking limitations, and vehicle restrictions. It can also help your drivers get to the hardest-to-reach addresses in the most efficient way possible.
Automated Update Notifications Reduce Failed Deliveries
Not only can our last mile solutions get your drivers to remote and hidden addresses, but it can also prevent failed deliveries caused by customers not being home at the time of delivery. With automated customer notifications, your customers will know when there is a delay or when the driver is running ahead of schedule.
They’ll receive updates at every stage, notifications of any changes, accurate ETAs, and they’ll have access to a delivery tracking page, so they can check it whenever they want between notifications. Then, they’ll know exactly when to be home.
Elite EXTRA’s Last Mile Solution Benefits
When you implement Elite EXTRA’s powerful suite of last mile solutions, you reap the rewards.
Benefits of Elite EXTRA’s Last Mile Solutions for Your Business:
- Optimized Routes: Get the fastest, shortest, and/or lowest cost route every time based on your priorities.
- Streamlined Operations: Our suite of last mile solutions works together seamlessly to make the entire last mile logistics process more streamlined and efficient, and less costly and difficult. You can automate everything for an almost completely hands-off process that runs itself.
- Faster Delivery Options: If customers want faster shipping, we’ll help you deliver with two-day, same-day, and on-demand delivery options.
- Lower Costs: Automation and efficiency lead to huge cost savings that you can invest in your business where you need it most.
- Time and Resource Savings: Waste less time and resources by automating your manual processes and optimizing every step.
- Enhanced Visibility: You can see your packages and drivers in real time at all times, and customers can track their package anytime of the day or night.
- Peace of Mind: Knowing that everything is running smoothly and efficiently without you allows you to breathe a huge sigh of relief. We’ll take the weight off your shoulders, and you’ll know everything is being taken care of the right way.
- Happier Customers: Customers are happier when things are less expensive, faster, easier, and more accurate. Your customers will be delighted by your delivery services without costing you more.
- More Accurate Decisions: With our Business Reports and Analytics, you can see all your data in one place and gain powerful insights into your business processes to make better, more accurate, data-driven decisions that get results.
Top Last Mile Solution Features
When you implement Elite EXTRA’s powerful suite of last mile solutions, you get a wide array of features that all work together seamlessly.
Elite EXTRA’s Top Last Mile Solution Features:
- Optimized and Automated Routing
- Driver Mobile App and Tracking
- Real-Time Customer Notifications
- Business Analytics and Reports
- eCommerce Third-Party Delivery
- Third-Party Delivery with the Nation’s Top Carriers and Crowdsourced Fleets Like Uber and DoorDash
- Third-Party Automated Dispatch
- Live Returns Dashboard
- Easy-to-Use Customer Returns Portal
- Automated Return Policy Implementation and Validation
- Digital Returns Chain of Custody Records
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to the most common last mile solutions questions.
What Are Last Mile Solutions?
Last mile solutions are any business software meant to deal with last mile delivery processes.
What Is a Last Mile Delivery Strategy?
A last mile delivery strategy is a plan to get your customers their order. This is your business’s approach to getting your customers’ orders from your warehouse or delivery hub to their delivery address.
How to Solve Last Mile Delivery?
You can solve last mile delivery challenges with last mile solutions like Elite EXTRA. We can make your last mile go the EXTRA mile by automating, streamlining, and improving your existing processes.
Are Last Mile Delivery Solutions Expensive?
The pricing and cost of last mile solutions depend on the option you choose and the features you need as well as the scale of your operations.
While powerful and effective last mile solutions can come at a large upfront cost, it’s a worthy investment in your business. The right last mile solutions will save you money and increase your profits, so the right software pays for itself.
Like What You See? Take the Next Step
Ready to know more? Contact our team to learn how our Elite EXTRA last mile solutions can optimize your operations.
