6 Major Challenges Faced by the Logistics Industry from an End User Perspective

by Noman Shaikh, Guest Contributor
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Logistics Industry is a big deal, and tackling so many challenges makes it one of the most difficult industries to survive, irrespective of the domain, and that is the reason why logistics companies have gained wide recognition.

Cutting down the transportation costs has been a primary challenge, managers using the last mile delivery software have been facing around for years, but hold on since that’s not it as there are many more seen and unseen challenges to encounter.

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We have a list of challenges faced by the three parties – managers, field agents, customers using a last mile delivery logistics app, system, or software.

Challenges for the Managers

• Rising costs of the fuel

As we discussed, fuel expenditure has been a major hurdle for managers especially with fuel prices seeing a steep increase, and the online shopping demand increasing by leaps and bounds. 

This has led managers to think on scalability terms, whether to cater to a specific region, or to the whole market, within a country or across countries.

• Management of the diverse workforce

With too many field agents involved in the delivery process, it can get real tough for managers to coordinate with every individual agent, to get the right turnaround time without any damage. 

This could be even worse when field agents are dishonest, rude, addicted to liquor, not capable enough to handle the turnaround time, misconduct in behaving in front of customers, or arrogant in taking orders from others.

Challenges for Field Agents

• Service not at it’s best

In today’s time employment and customer service is just about everything for delivery staff and not fulfilling on providing utmost satisfaction can be a major blunder. 

Delay in delivery and not receiving real time updates from managers as well as customers are the hurdles that can intervene in serving both parties. 

• Environmental issues due to damage

Many field agents are assigned the task of transporting things that can do a major environmental damage in case of a damage in the transit. 

Delivery people do have to take care while carrying goods from one place to another, especially when the carbon footprint and products are at stake.

Challenges for the Customers

• Not receiving real time updates

Customers do face this problem of not receiving real time updates of packages leading to apprehension related to the app or the product ordered. 

This can be troublesome especially when customers have paid in advance for the purchased products or they expect products to arrive on special occasions, but due to absence of notifications or updates they are not aware of where their products have reached and when they would arrive.

• Not able to use app

For consumers who are not tech savvy, or who haven’t understood the app, it can be tough placing an order right away within the app. 

Also, sometimes due to technical issues within the app, customers tend to place repetitive orders by mistake that can be absolutely challenging, especially when they have to go through a replacement or return process.

What to conclude?
It is very important to stay ahead of the above discussed and other related challenges when planning for a last mile logistics delivery solution.

Thankfully, organisations have started realising the importance of supply chain management and turnaround time that has led to businesses giving their best in today’s highly competitive arena. 

If you want to stand out in your last mile delivery and logistics solutions, ensure that you have planned for all the challenges in advance before being released to the end users.

About the author:

Noman Shaikh is a Digital Marketing Head at Fixlastmile which is known for developing top-notch real-time delivery tracking software. He believes in sharing his strong knowledge base with leaned concentration on entrepreneurship and business.

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