Category: Dispatching

 

Running a business is not always easy, as you always have to move with trends and provide efficient services for your customers. This is applicable in dispatching. Knowing the latest trends and keeping up with satisfying your customer’s needs is essential. In this article, we will be giving you tips on how to increase dispatch efficiencies.

 

 

1. Hire the Right People

 

 

Some business owners make the mistake of hiring the wrong people for the wrong positions, this eventually becomes a disaster in the long run. If you are in dispatching and you are looking to hire new workers, be sure to hire qualified people for the position of a dispatcher. This is because dispatching is an integral part of the company and having the wrong people handle this position could damage the companies reputation. So be very conscious!

 

During the hiring process, look out for people with multi-tasking skills and tech knowledge. Also, seek excellent communicators that are familiar with the services and the locality of the company.

 

 

2. Define Your Process

 

In every business, the process is an important factor. Your business should be able to follow a very well defined and effective work process to avoid confusion and increase productivity. In dispatching, this factor is very essential as it helps your workers or dispatchers know their duty or work for the day. With proper daily documentation, strict adherence to work processes and adequate staff training, the efficiency level of your business will increase drastically.

 

 

3. Optimize Your Dispatch

 

 

Another way to keep your customers happy and satisfied is to optimize your dispatch by prioritizing which customers need an immediate response. In the medical field, this is known as the triage. This is a situation where doctors and nurses determine which case is an emergency and needs an immediate response.

 

Similarly, dispatchers have the power to determine which customer needs the immediate attention of a tech. So look out and prioritize cases of emergencies that cannot wait another day over those that can wait another few days.

 

This strategy will not only improve the efficiency of the dispatch but make your customers happy and satisfied.

 

 

4. Efficient Routing

 

 

We all want our customers to be happy and always come back for our services. One way to achieve this in dispatching is to provide efficient routing and quick deliveries or services to your customers. This can be attained by keeping your service providers and technicians local to calls in their areas. This is an advantage as it will lead to better management of fuel and shorter drive time.

 

 

5. Utilize Computer Aided Dispatch

 

Computer Aided Dispatch is the means of using computer dispatching software like ZenduWork to dispatch couriers, taxi cabs, technicians, field services, and more. ZenduWork automatically optimizes routes and allows you to organize your work orders, making your dispatching operations more efficient.

 

 

In conclusion, you should pay attention to your dispatchers and always check the services your customers need. You should also utilize the tools of the industry, and look for software that best suits your needs once you have outlined them.

 

 

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Our fleet management software offers an intuitive way to dispatch your vehicles to specified locations with the help of zones and third-party device integrations such as Garmin. Zones, as defined in our fleet management software My.Geotab, are geofences representing a virtual perimeter or fence around the geographical real-world area of interest. Dispatching within our software works by obtaining the zone addresses and then sending those addresses to a third parting routing device.

There are two main ways within My.Geotab of dispatching vehicles:
Dispatching Vehicles to Zones or Dispatching Routes to Vehicles.

Dispatching Vehicles to Zones
Before you can start dispatching vehicles to zones, you’ll need to add some zones first into your database. We offer simple tools for creating zones which allows you to easily draw a zone shape in the area you choose. Additionally, a large number of zones can be created all at once by importing a bulk list of longitude and latitude information in an Excel sheet. After the zones have been imported, you can then start dispatching to your vehicles by finding the zone on the map and clicking on it. By clicking on the zone it will open up a list of options including one called Dispatch Vehicle Here.

When clicking the dispatch button, you can select one or multiple vehicles that you would like to receive the request. In addition, a message can also be sent with the dispatch address which can be used to provide additional instructions for the driver. After the dispatch message has been sent, the routing device will receive the address and start routing to the destination as soon as the driver reads the message and chooses to accept the dispatch instructions.

Dispatching Routes to Vehicles
Entire routes can be sent to your vehicles to dispatch a series of destinations that your drivers should reach. Creating routes in MyGeotab can be done by simply connecting multiple zones together. To send a route to one of your vehicles, select Zones & Messages from the main menu within MyGeotab and then select Routes from the sub-menu. Find the desired route from the list of available routes, and then there will be an option to send the route to a vehicle.

Dispatching has been made easy with MyGeotab. It’s a powerful fleet management tool helping you enhance your overall customer service and fleet efficiency through creating custom zones. You will have better insight to where your vehicles are, and where your drivers are headed. This will allow you to see opportunities for fitting in more customer visits, while still reducing the number of miles driven. For more details about dispatching and zone creation, please refer to Geotab’s Product Guide.

Original Article By: Dominic Loong, Technical Services Engineer at Geotab
http://www.geotab.com/blog/use-mygeotab-dispatch/