Innovative Office Solutions, a Minneapolis-based independent office supply dealer, was drowning in paper. It reached for a proof-of-delivery (POD) lifeline that has helped the company’s drivers and back office become more efficient, while reducing costs and improving service. Delivering those advantages means that real-time, cloud-based JumpTrack has helped make Innovative more competitive, according to Jump Technologies. That’s particularly noteworthy in today’s fiercely competitive office supply market, which is dominated by three big-box majors and suffering encroachment by those titanic general merchandisers.
“We were working in a paper-driven world that slowed down drivers and office staff,” says Jason Player, chief information officer at Innovative Office Solutions. “We’ve eliminated our paper bottleneck by listing all manifest details on the drivers’ mobile phones. Drivers have instant visibility into routes, delivery details and notes on their phones, and office staff has access to the same information on the Web portal.”
While on the phone with a customer who has a delivery question, the office person can access the application and let the customer know who signed for it and when they signed. And if the delivery has not been made yet that day, they can tell the customers where the driver is on their route to estimate an arrival time.
Player says, “Not having to sift through paper for answers or call drivers means greater productivity all the way around. No more digging through volumes of paper and calling customers back. Our paperless world lets us respond to customers immediately and provide the kind of service our customers expect. We’re working on adding self-service tracking on our website so customers can look at their order history, most recent order, and real-time delivery information.”
Routes are downloaded to drivers’ smartphones to use as a manifest. This saves drivers time sorting through a paper version to find orders because they are sequenced. Innovative drivers now have delivery information about stops, orders, and packages in their smartphones in route order. In addition, orders are grouped by stop, so one person per stop can sign for all orders.
The built-in mapping/navigation helps new drivers save time. Player explains, “They simply click on the next address on their route to find a map to the next stop, which saves them time until they become familiar with our customer locations. I’d say it saved each new driver about 30 minutes a day for three months.”
Innovative’s fleet manager uses JumpTrack to review driver performance and productivity. Player says, “It’s easy to see the distance and number of stops covered during a specific time period. He’s used this information to pare down total delivery time by an estimated seven hours each week.
Player concludes, “It really enhances our professional image.”
Editor’s note: This article was provided by John Freund, chief executive officer and chief technologist of Jump Technologies
