How Real-Time Visibility for Parcel Shipping Improves Exceptions Management

Hazardous last-mile logistics often impact parcel shipping during part of the journey to reach the end customer. This ends up becoming a particularly exceptions-prone part of the shipping process. Last-mile delivery tracking informs shippers and customers alike of the delivery window so they can keep up with any changes. Real-time visibility is critical to exception management when you’re shipping parcels.

Real-time visibility in logistics provides a range of benefits to the shipper and customers that extend beyond exception management. This article covers what visibility is related to parcel shipments, how it works, and how to get started with this vital aspect of transportation optimization.

What Is Real-Time Visibility for Parcel Shipping?

It’s important to know where a parcel is from when the carrier picks it up until final delivery to the customer. This awareness helps ensure a proper shipping process and gives customers up-to-date information for a better customer experience. Real-time visibility in logistics enables you to track a parcel’s entire journey as it’s happening. You can track its location at any given time, monitor the anticipated delivery date and time, and mitigate any delays or adjustments that affect the original delivery plan.

Real-time visibility solutions also make it possible to track a parcel’s condition. You get notified if there are any shipping exceptions, which means there’s a delay from an unavoidable cause like weather conditions or a problem with the delivery vehicle.

Shippers continually utilize real-time parcel visibility as a critical component of their modern logistics strategies. It offers significant benefits to shippers and their customers:

  • It gives shippers more control over shipments.
  • It increases customer knowledge and satisfaction.
  • It improves the likelihood of on-time delivery and helps ensure shipments are in good condition upon arrival.
  • It streamlines shipping to create a faster, better delivery process.

Real-Time Visibility for Parcel Shipping & Exceptions Management

During a time of unpredictable global logistics, shippers need flexibility more than ever. Increased visibility can provide this, as it allows shippers to track all shipments, gain insights, compare carriers, and strategize based on data and analytics.

In addition, better visibility into parcel shipments supports exception management. It enables shippers to track the shipment status in real time and identify exceptions as they occur during the delivery process.

Through improved visibility, shippers can:

  • Identify delays or other concerns during shipping.
  • Use tracking information to make adjustments and corrections as needed to ensure timely delivery and enhanced customer satisfaction.
  • Respond efficiently to exceptions, cutting down on the resources needed to manage them.

All of this directly supports exceptions management.

The Benefits of Real-Time Visibility for Parcel Shipping

The benefits of transportation visibility for parcel shipping extend far beyond exceptions management, although that is a significant benefit. Here are some additional benefits for businesses that shippers can expect.

  • Increased operational efficiency: Real-time transportation visibility into parcel shipments empowers shippers to make informed decisions on routing, resource allocation, and scheduling.
  • Reduced costs: Shippers can use real-time visibility in logistics to minimize expenses related to inventory and lost or delayed shipments.
  • Enhanced security: Shippers can track shipments to double-check if each delivery has reached the correct destination.
  • Improved customer service: Customers gain enhanced, up-to-date information on their orders, which enables them to plan around deliveries and create a better overall experience. In addition, when customers can see the tracking information for themselves, this cuts down on reaching out to the shipper.
  • Improved customer retention: Shippers create more trust with customers when they provide real-time transportation visibility. Trust, in turn, leads to customer loyalty and improved retention rates, which are hallmarks of success.
  • Better collaboration between shippers and third-party providers: Real-time visibility in logistics opens communication and collaboration between shippers, logistics professionals, transportation providers, and end customers.

How Does Real-Time Visibility for Parcel Shipping Work?

Technology enables shippers to gain real-time transportation data visibility and share it with customers. In essence, shippers and carriers use GPS, RFID, and other types of sensors to track the location of parcels. This technology also provides additional information, including pick-up time, estimated time of arrival, and delivery confirmation. The sensors track information and share it with shippers so they gain real-time visibility and valuable data insights to use in decision-making. Companies can use this technology to plan strategically and do everything they can to ensure on-time parcel deliveries.

Companies can also use real-time tracking technology’s visibility to check that parcels remain in optimal quality. For instance, shippers better understand whether packages are handled properly and securely during the shipping process. They can also share more detailed information with customers in real time.

Shippers can integrate real-time visibility software into their existing tech stacks. Overall, this technology helps streamline operations and create a better customer experience while also cutting costs.

The Challenges of Real-Time Visibility for Parcel Shipping

While increased visibility is great for shippers and customers, you must be aware of its challenges before implementing technology and software.

Here are some downsides to expect from the process of increasing parcel visibility:

  • Implementing real-time parcel shipment visibility comes at a cost. There can be a substantial initial investment for the technology and hardware infrastructure needed to gain increased visibility.
  • Accurate data collection can be challenging. Collecting data on parcel shipments is important and helpful, but it’s necessary to understand the data and how to use it. Working with inaccurate data can lead to small mistakes that add up to considerable costs.
  • It often takes more work to transform raw data into usable analytics. Having accurate data isn’t enough. You also need the knowledge and skill to turn data into expert-driven aggregation and analytics that drive informed insights and business decisions.

Starting these visibility processes from scratch is difficult, especially if your team doesn’t include members with an applicable skillset. You would need to put in the time, effort, and resources to invest in the technology and team members to start the process and maintain real-time visibility going forward.

An easier option is to partner with an organization like Intelligent Audit that uses its knowledge, skills, and technology to give shippers visibility. Rather than building from the ground up, you can work with a third party ready to immediately hit the ground running and provide improved parcel visibility.

For Blue-Chip Parcel Visibility, Partner With Intelligent Audit Today

It’s worth improving real-time parcel visibility for all shippers. Remember the many benefits this capability provides in addition to exceptions management. It also creates better customer service and retention, improves parcel security, cuts costs of lost or delayed shipments, streamlines operations, and helps shippers communicate and collaborate better with third-party providers and customers. These are tangible benefits that enhance all aspects of the business.

Adding real-time parcel shipment visibility to your business comes with some challenges related to building a solution from scratch. While this option will pay off in time, you can skip the initial investment and growing pains by working with a third party like Intelligent Audit. This option simplifies the process by helping you rely on the knowledge, skill, and technology of Intelligent Audit, giving you quick and ongoing access to visibility information.

Intelligent Audit can provide real-time transportation visibility for shippers that you can share with customers. We can also provide quality, accurate data, help you analyze it, and glean valuable insights from it.

By partnering with Intelligent Audit for real-time visibility in logistics, you’ll be in good company, joining some of the largest parcel shippers in the industry today. As an industry leader, we work with companies that include 20% of the fortune 50, among many others.

As a company that has revolutionized how logistics professionals handle their parcel and freight audits, Intelligent Audit knows exceptions. We can help shippers gain real-time visibility that helps them manage exceptions, among other benefits of parcel visibility. This is one of the various solutions we can provide for transportation optimization. We also provide:

  • Transportation visibility platforms provide improved visibility into carriers, services, modes, and other aspects of shipping.
  • Trusted analytics and guidance, based on our industry experience, to help shippers make informed decisions.
  • Cleansed, normalized data and relevant insights that help you develop data-backed strategies.
  • Expert analysis that uses historical data to look forward, helping create comprehensive modeling scenarios.
  • Reliable logistics advice that helps shippers improve their entire supply chain, including streamlining transit time, cutting costs, and improving the customer experience.

If you’re looking for real-time visibility and expert guidance to optimize parcel shipping, start a conversation with Intelligent Audit today.

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