A driver, a van and a list on a clipboard
Thursday is delivery day. Your driver, perhaps a family member, perhaps a part-timer, sets off with forty boxes in the van and a printed list. The list is in the order the boxes were added to the spreadsheet, not the order of the lanes. Three customers are away this week, but one of them is still on the list. A new customer lives in a hamlet the driver has never been to. One box is meant to go 'round the back by the log store', but that note is only in an email from last spring.
By early afternoon, the driver is doubling back along a road they drove an hour earlier, and a customer phones the shop asking where their box is.
Why rounds stay messy
Box schemes grow a few customers at a time, and each is added to the end of whichever list seems right. Skips change the round every week. Rural addresses are hard to find, and satnav postcodes cover large areas. Drop instructions are passed on verbally. And the round order that worked when there were fifteen stops does not work at fifty.
- Rounds follow the order customers joined, not the road.
- Skipped boxes are not removed from the driver's list.
- Rural postcodes point to the wrong end of a lane.
- Drop notes live in old emails and the driver's memory.
- Nobody records which boxes could not be delivered and why.
What poor rounds cost
Fuel and driver time are the direct costs, and they grow with every doubled-back mile. Missed or late boxes waste produce and create calls to the shop. New drivers struggle for weeks, which makes holiday cover difficult. And customers whose box sat on a doorstep in the rain, because the drop note was not passed on, are the ones most likely to cancel.
The owner often ends up doing the round themselves on busy weeks because nobody else knows it well enough.
The round planner we build
- The week's confirmed boxes taken from your box system or spreadsheet after the cut-off, with skips already removed.
- Each customer's location saved as a precise map pin, set once by the driver or the customer, rather than relying on the postcode.
- Rounds ordered by a routing service such as Google Maps or a similar route planner, starting and finishing at the farm, with any time windows you promise.
- A driver view on a phone: the next stop, the pin, the drop note ('round the back by the log store', 'leave with number 4 if out'), a photo of the drop spot if one was taken, and a 'delivered' button.
- An optional text to customers when their round starts or when they are a few stops away, sent through a service such as Twilio.
- A record of each drop: delivered, left with a neighbour or not delivered and why, with a follow-up list for the shop.
| Problem | What the planner does |
|---|---|
| Skipped box still on the list | Removed before the round is planned |
| Postcode points to wrong place | Uses the saved map pin |
| Drop instructions forgotten | Shown at each stop with photo |
| Customer calls asking where box is | Delivery text sent in advance |
| Box not delivered | Recorded with reason for follow-up |
The driver can reorder stops if they know a better way, such as a road closed for the harvest or a gate that is only open in the morning, and the planner remembers it.
Delivery day afterwards
On Thursday morning the driver opens the round on their phone. The boxes are loaded in reverse drop order from the list. At each stop, the drop note and pin are on screen. Customers who want a text get one when the van is near. The customer who is away is not on the list.
When someone new covers the round, they have everything the regular driver knows. At the end of the day, the shop sees two boxes marked 'left with neighbour' and one 'no access, returned', and follows up.
As the scheme grows, you can see when a round is getting too long and where a second round would make sense.
Do your delivery days look like this?
- The driver's list is in the order customers joined, not the order of the roads.
- Boxes have been delivered to customers who skipped.
- Drop instructions live in someone's memory.
- Only one person can do the round without getting lost.
- Customers phone the shop asking when their box will arrive.