In today’s busy world and lives full of hassle, who has time to wait to get their desired products? No one likes to wait in line at the pharmacy to get their medicines. So, different pharmacies like Super Meds offer online pharmacy delivery. People, on the other hand, do not want to wait for their medications to be delivered to their homes after placing an order online. For this, online pharmacies need to speed up their delivery processes to shorten the wait time for their customers.
How is fast online pharmacy delivery important?
Speed of delivery affects every kind of business, and it is an important factor that most customers consider while ordering any product. People usually don’t think of fast delivery as an additional feature of online service, but consider it a necessity that every business opting for home delivery must have. The big businesses of today do not just bid on the quality of their products. But, they also make sure that they get their products delivered on time. This makes people wait for less for their desired goods and services.
If your online pharmacy wishes to compete with other online pharmacies out there, then it must adopt a bulletproof strategy and robust technology to offer speedy delivery.
Ways to speed up online pharmacy delivery
Many different ways are proven to speed up online pharmacy medicine delivery. If your pharmacy wishes to compete with other pharmacies, then you must adopt these strategies.
- Optimize the route of delivery
To offer the fastest delivery speeds, the first step is to optimize the entire routing. The tip is to select the fastest and most cost-effective routes that are possible for delivery. You shouldn’t choose the routes that are the shortest but may have longer wait times and heavy traffic. They shouldn’t be chosen because they may be cheap, but are longer than the other possible routes. Consider all factors while choosing the route for online pharmacy delivery, whether the route is short, you can travel faster, has fewer wait signals, less traffic etc.
It can become a challenge to truly optimize the routes. This is especially true if you do it manually through calculation and basic delivery mapping software. This can be a time-consuming process if your pharmacy has several vehicles and need to deliver tons of medicines every day. Taking help from route optimization software is a possible way to use technology to make things faster and more effective. It helps fleet managers, leadership teams, and delivery drivers.
- Make plans before the time
If you wish to speed up online pharmacy delivery, then advance scheduling and planning are essential steps to make this possible. The further plans you make for days ahead, the better you can maximize the execution. For instance, if you are making plans of the deliveries for the coming days. Then there is very little space to make changes and you are more at risk to get caught off guard.
If you have loads of orders for the holidays, but due to any reason, the holidays start a couple of weeks earlier than expected. If you have made delivery plans for the next five weeks, then you would have a lot of time to reschedule the deliveries and assign additional drivers and riders to meet the demand successfully. But if you have planned for just a couple of next days, then you may not have enough time to make timely arrangements for on-time deliveries. Thus you may lose some of the valuable customers.
Planning also benefits the staff and riders and creates a healthier and more productive working environment. If you have set up schedules for the drivers for the next whole month. Then a rider can request shift swap and find coverage if they wish to attend a party at home or have some other task at hand.
- Have the option of route modification
Making plans in advance is an important thing and so is the option to make changes in the plans when there are unexpected challenges. There can be many surprises in every job that must be done, and delivery routes are at risk for many of them. For example, there may be high traffic on a route, the driver may get a flat tire, or they can get held up at delivery when they try to help a customer. When things don’t go as expected, the drivers should change the plan as small hold-ups can easily turn into hours-long delays. The dispatchers should also get instant updates if a driver gets caught. They should be able to modify the routes and send the updated routes to the drivers without losing any time.
There is delivery software that offers live tracking of orders for the customers, so the customers know when they will get their orders delivered to their homes. It also reduces customer complaints about services and delivery and increases the overall satisfaction rates of the customers for online pharmacy delivery.
- Set up the priorities
To reach customers quickly and effectively, you must prioritize correctly and set appropriate ordering stops. There are many factors that you must consider when setting priorities for stops along the way. An urgent delivery package of health medicines, for which a customer has paid an extra fee, should be prioritized over a standard delivery package. Consider another scenario too, in which three standard delivery orders are coming in from a rush order customer. It is good to make stops in the way and drop the non-rush packages while on the way to the urgent delivery of medicines.
Assigning orders to different drivers also needs proper planning. Assign each driver an equal workload, considering the number of orders as well as the distance they would need to travel to meet the delivery deadlines.
- Combine reverse and forward logistics
If you combine the forward logistics drop-off routes with reverse logistics pick-up routes, then it can cut the travel time and planning time in half. If there is a need to drop off some medicines at a place, and there is a need to pick up some products from around the same place, then it makes sense to assign both tasks to the same person rather than sending two different drivers at the same place.
Choose the right pharmacy with online pharmacy delivery
Now you know some ways in which your pharmacy or any pharmacy can speed up their online medicine delivery system. If you are looking for a pharmacy that already offers online pharmacy delivery, choosing Super Meds would be the right decision, as you can place your order online and get it delivered to your desired location.