Kings Group is always looking for ways to change the game and optimise the customer and driver experience. In this blog post, we explore how Kings uses technology to improve its transport and logistics services, and the benefits and challenges of using technology in the industry.
Kings was founded in 1991 and has since grown to become one of the largest privately-owned transport and logistics companies in Australia. The company operates a large fleet of vehicles and employs over 800 staff, serving customers across Australia and New Zealand.
With growth came the opportunity to expand our capabilities further than ever before. In recent years, the team has been strategising ways to leverage technology to create a seamless experience for our drivers and customers. In doing so, we came up with the technology wheel.
Evolving For The Future
Kings look at technology in transport as a way to transform and drive our business to its fullest potential. The technology wheel consists of eight elements that all contribute to this initiative. Let’s take a look at each of those elements and the impact they have on our business:
Route Optimisation:
Kings use our routing solution (Pin Routes) to provide tactical routing to our customers. Most of our customers have the need for tactical routing for next day deliveries, meaning they rely heavily on having our routing platform integrated with our “Transport Management System”, which updates the end customer with their next day delivery details including date, time window, delivery location, job number and ability to add a location to leave the delivery safe.
Our routing solution has hard and soft preferences that are identified at the start of a partnership with our customer. These customer specific preferences provide our customer with a personal routing profile that suits, the product we’re delivering, the trucks the product is being delivered in, the locations being delivered to and the time they’re being delivered. Hard and soft preferences are decisions that affect the volume, time and cost of a delivery. An example of one of these preferences may be to always make a customer’s preferred time window over the ability to take the most cost effective route.
In all instances of tactical routing, no matter if they require quarterly or daily routing, Kings works with our customers to understand their needs and design a solution that can reduce cost, improve the overall experience and provide our customers with the ability to make strategic decisions based on their tactical delivery capacity.
Driver App:
Our driver app makes the job and driver tracking as simple as possible, eliminating any room for error. Within the app, you can track jobs, runs, delivery status, KMs, tolls and driver compliance. We have integrated several automated notifications including: alerts for fatigue, breaks, licence, registration, servicing, insurance, police checks and training refreshers.
Customer Portal:
Our unique customer portal creates a digital experience and one-stop-shop to book, query, maintain and report on delivery. We plan to continuously evolve this platform to revolutionise the customer experience. Our customers can view each stage of their delivery, request a place for us to leave their delivery safe, track the final stage of their delivery on a map and view the signature or proof of delivery.
RND & Continuous Improvement:
Our dedicated Kings Transformation and IT team are always on the lookout for ways to optimise and improve the performance of our technology systems. This includes both customer and driver experience improvements.
Customer Experience:
Within the customer portal, we have introduced customer experience allowing each customer to leave feedback about our service, which is automatically recorded in our transport management system, Despatch Master. Customers can tailor their questions, change the text message wording, and design their email communication.
EDI & Customer Integration:
Kings has incorporated an entirely automated job booking system through EDI and the Kings Application directly.
BI Analytics:
BI analytics collates all data collected by Kings which can then be used to present necessary KPIs to assist in optimising and improving all aspects of both our and our customers’ business. This is available in report form upon customer request and is created by Kings personally, in line with their requirements.
Job Management & Scheduling:
Job Management and scheduling systems allow for jobs from start to finish to run in a very systematic way. Every step in the process is recorded and reported on to ensure the best possible experience and improvement where required.
The use of technology in transport and logistics offers several benefits, including improved safety, increased efficiency, and reduced costs. For Kings, technology has allowed the company to optimise its operations and offer better services to its customers. However, there are also challenges to using technology in the industry, such as the need for ongoing investments in infrastructure, training, and continued improvement.
Kings use technology to improve systems and services, and stay ahead of the competition. By leveraging technology in transport and logistics, we can improve efficiency, reduce costs, and offer better services to our customers.
You can read more about our systems and software here: https://www.kingstransport.com.au/systems-and-software/
