How Does Electronic Proof of Delivery Impact Costs?

Last mile delivery costs are driven by a wide range of different factors, from fuel and labor to phone calls, printed paperwork, truck maintenance, and more. It’s no wonder that it accounts for nearly half of all total logistics costs! So it’s no surprise that businesses across multiple verticals are always on the lookout for ways to manage those costs—which is why more and more delivery organizations are prioritizing digital proof of delivery.

Wait. Digital proof of delivery? Is that really going to offer you the ability to control your delivery costs? Sure, it’s nice to digitize something that you used to be printed out—but how much of an impact can it really make??

As it turns out, the answer is that electronic proof of delivery (or electronic POD) can make a real dent in your delivery costs and help bolster last mile customer experience at the same time. In this post, we’ll get into the nitty-gritty details of how that works in practice.?

Electronic Proof of Delivery Is Key to Keeping Delivery Costs Down

People tend to keep doing things the way they do them until there’s a real cost associated with it—and even then, it can be easy to become blind to the cost just from having done it so long. For some businesses, paper proof of delivery falls into this category. It’s just the way business is conducted.?

But as businesses have digitized their last mile delivery operations in the past 10 years or so, PoD has presented an easy opportunity for digital transformation. With the right electronic proof of delivery software, you can cut out all of the paperwork that drivers have historically had to carry around with them and improve your last mile delivery performance in the process. Here’s how:

Managing False Damage and Liability Claims

When it comes to managing your profit and loss sheet, it pretty much goes without saying that getting paid for what you deliver is crucial. That means avoiding—or fending off—damage and liability claims that might prevent your customers from paying their bills.?

Historically, this has been the bane of many a furniture retailer’s existence. Plenty of damage claims from customers are real, of course, but a huge percentage of them refer to damage that was caused after the delivery team was finished or is completely unrelated to the delivery. In spite of the spurious nature of many of the damage and liability claims that were sent to the typical retailer, there wasn’t much that could be done to refute them. Often, it wouldn’t be worth the person-hours required to chase down the proof that you needed to defend against these claims.?

With electronic proof of delivery, the calculus changes. Your drivers can document each delivery with photos and customer signatures, so there’s zero doubt about the condition of the items or the delivery site when the job is done. Most people when presented with hard evidence that there was no damage caused by the delivery team will drop their damage claims and pay their invoices.?

Conversely, in cases where damage did occur, your team has a clear record of what happened and can easily process claims. The effect is the same either way: you get to the right answer more quickly and expend fewer resources doing so.?

Learn the rest of the ways electronic proof of delivery impacts costs by reading the full article here: https://www.dispatchtrack.com/blog/electronic-proof-of-delivery