Optimize Your Fleet: 7 EDI Tactics for Driver Retention and Financial Gains
Challenging economic times and tightrope margins add pressure to retain more of your best drivers. Hiring costs run between $2000 and $10,000 per head, according to BetterTeam, and that’s not counting the negative impact turnover has on safety and customer service, among other critical areas.
Technology advancements can help meet driver needs and improve the bottom line. One area that’s easy to overlook is exchanging information with customers. Any delays or miscommunications can negatively impact drivers’ work experience and earnings.
Let's consider seven options to orchestrate a faster and more accurate flow of information.
Gain an Edge with Better EDI Management
Technology advancements that increase efficiency in the office are worth their weight in gold, mainly functions that positively impact the driver experience. Below are seven ways better EDI management can help you retain more drivers and increase profitability:
- Reduce Paperwork
EDI reduces the need for manual paperwork. For example, electronic bills of lading can be received from customers and sent to a driver mobile app to capture signatures. Eliminating paperwork creates more accurate and efficient processing. Documents such as invoices, bills of lading, and delivery receipts can stay electronic from start to finish.
- Faster Transactions
EDI integrations enable real-time exchange of information through your TMS, speeding up acceptance of loads and allowing carriers to respond quickly to changes and requirements.
- Improve Communications
Drivers and dispatchers can give customers automatic shipment updates, eliminate manual check calls, better coordinate delivery schedules, and prevent misunderstandings.
- Cost Savings
Data exchange automation reduces administrative staff's time spent on mundane tasks, allowing people to focus on other tasks and lessening operational costs.
- Improved Cash Flow
Efficient EDI systems can expedite billing and payment processes. Faster processing of invoices and payments improves cash flow, allowing carriers to invest in better equipment, driver incentives, and other business areas.
- Consistent Workloads
Better EDI management helps fleets capture more business from customers and balance workloads, ensuring drivers have consistent and fair assignments. This can lead to more predictable and reasonable work hours.
- Better Customer Service
Accurate and timely data exchange with customer systems helps ensure on-time, error-free deliveries, which in turn helps retain customers and provides drivers with consistent routes and schedules.
EDI allows for automatic tracking updates and proactive management of potential issues, leading to smoother operations and a better customer experience.
- Enhanced Reporting
Automated data collection with EDI leads to better reporting and valuable insights into operations, enabling carriers to make informed decisions and improve overall performance.
Addressing these areas can improve EDI management and create a more efficient, transparent, and driver-friendly work environment. This is essential for retaining drivers and increasing profit margins through load optimization and automated efficiencies.
Take the Fast Lane to Profits with Magnus EDI Manager
Magnus Platform’s EDI Manager delivers next-level speed and decision-making capabilities for accepting or declining customer load tenders via EDI and other data exchange methods. The system’s powerful rules engine and workflow save time and equip your customer service team with critical insights to make profitable, real-time decisions.
The EDI Manager is included in the SaaS-based Magnus Platform for no added cost. It goes beyond traditional TMS capabilities to ensure adherence to volume commitments and to make profitable decisions from the outset.
Additionally, the Magnus system is flexible. The rules engine can adapt to have a seamless data exchange process for formats other than EDI, including APIs, flat files, SFTP, etc.