It’s not your first rodeo - but it might be your first time running peak season after 2.0 integration. That means you’ll be contending with peak season volume spikes, express volume, and Time-Definite Deliveries (TDDs), all at the same time. It’ll be all hands on deck.
Here are some tips and tricks for how to maintain your deliverability percentage and medals rating this peak season:
What’s Changed After 2.0?
There’s one key takeaway here: your margin for error just got smaller. That’s because you’re balancing express volume and TDDs on the same trucks that are expected to handle peak season’s package volume spikes.
Think of it this way: prior to 2.0, a truck unexpectedly going down represented a painful but recoverable obstacle. Post-2.0, that truck is carrying Time-Definite Deliveries. A late TDD is a service failure.
Running thin on trucks and drivers during peak is riskier than ever. The distance between “something went wrong” and “my service score got dinged” is a lot narrower.
How Should I Organize My Routes?
Route optimization looks a little different after 2.0. Prior to network integration, contractors often mapped routes with the goal of keeping mileage to a minimum. Priorities have shifted with the introduction of TDDs. Now, avoiding service failures and late deliveries matters more for your medals rating and the health of your business.
Structure your routes around TDD clusters. It’s easier to prioritize those time-sensitive deliveries by delivery window, rather than routing based on geography. This strategy may not minimize your mileage as effectively, but it will protect your service score.
Start this process now. Where are your TDDs located? How can you structure your territory to ensure those deliveries are all timely? If you have clusters of TDDs at opposite ends of your CSA, that’s something you want to plan for in October - not during the holiday rush.
Run some tests this fall, before peak. If something doesn’t work, better to discover and fix it now.
Which Metrics Should I Prioritize?
Deliverability functions as a fleet metric now. That’ll sound different to veteran contractors, who have historically considered it more of a planning tool. Before 2.0 integration, with Ground volume only, issues with a driver no-show, a mechanical failure, or other unforeseen circumstances represented delayed stops. After 2.0, it means delayed stops AND service failures, if TDDs miss their delivery window. At best, it means having to call in other drivers and other trucks to help cover the route in question, driving the day’s plan into disarray.
Service failures affect your operation’s good standing more than extra mileage ever will. The question contractors need to ask themselves has shifted a little. It’s no longer “Can my fleet make it through peak?” - it’s, “What happens to my service score the day something unexpected inevitably happens?”
If your assessment indicates that your operation can’t absorb unexpected operational challenges during peak, that’s worth fixing now, while you have the time and capacity to do so.
Not sure where to get started? Reach out to Hello Truck Lease for a Free Fleet Efficiency Analysis. We’ll look at your fleet, routes, and utilization, and help you identify where your greatest risk exposure is.
How Do I Keep My Drivers On Track?
Train your drivers - even your veterans - on 2.0 changes. Explain how express integration affects them, their deliveries, their routes, and your operation’s strategy. New or seasonal drivers who haven’t run a peak season yet will need expectations set for them. Experienced drivers might be set in their ways, and require some coaching to adapt to the new lay of the land.
For all drivers, it’s helpful to train them on an order of operations, so when they’re out on a route, they’re prepared to tackle peak season challenges. Walk them through a triage: the importance of TDDs, the consequences of a late delivery/service failure, and what to do if they find themselves running behind schedule.
Keep safety at the forefront of your training. That remains a major metric for P&D contractors, and peak season is a recipe for preventable accidents, between the volume spikes, inexperienced drivers, time pressures, and longer days. Remember that it takes a year for points to drop off your SRI, so hasty mistakes this peak season will follow you into next year.
Is My Fleet Ready?
Last month, we recommended using the time between rental pickups and the start of peak to conduct a fleet maintenance audit. The window for that - to get your PMs done, tires ordered, and backup capacity prepared - is shrinking rapidly. If you haven’t begun, start now.
Run your numbers. Downtime costs more after 2.0 than it used to - previously, it meant delayed packages. Now, it means service failures, a route thrown into disorder, other drivers and trucks pulled in to do damage control, and a reduced chance at a timely recovery.
Our Free Fleet Efficiency Analysis is available to all contractors. If you’re not sure that your operation is ready for a 2.0 peak season, reach out today.
We’ve Been In Your Shoes
We’re former contractors who’ve successfully run over a decade of peak seasons ourselves, and we’ve been helping P&D contractors navigate their peak seasons since day one. The stakes for many contractors are higher this year, so the fundamentals are critically important: prepare your drivers, prepare your fleet, prioritize safety, and make sure your plan has some room for the unexpected.
Nervous about peak? Give us a call. We can review your plan with you and identify opportunities for improvement before the season gets underway.