Route Optimisation: A Complete Guide

Our research shows that 72% of mobile workers report customers feeling more rushed, and 74% say customers expect more than ever before. Route optimisation helps ensure mobile workers always take the quickest and most cost-effective routes, reducing drive time and getting to appointments faster.

• What is route optimisation
• Benefits of route optimisation
• How does route optimisation work?
• Route optimisation examples
• Route optimisation best practices
• How to choose the best route optimisation software?

Route optimisation is the process of planning the fastest and most cost-effective way for your mobile field service workers to get from one appointment to another. Route optimisation means your mobile workforce spends less time driving, which boosts efficiency and supports sustainability.

Route optimisation is a powerful tool in field service management. It can enhance your organisation’s field service operations — and can even lead to better customer service experience.

Some of the key benefits of route optimisation include:

• Improved efficiency:
  By calculating the most efficient sequence of customer visits based on location and other factors, mobile workers spend less time traveling and more time actively engaging with customers.
• Boosted customer satisfaction:
  Optimised routes ensure timely arrival for customer support in the field, leading to higher customer satisfaction and improved service quality.
• Cost reduction:
  Minimising travel time translates to decreased fuel costs and operational expenses.
• Accurate scheduling:
  Route optimisation allows for more precise workforce management. Considering real-time traffic conditions and other variables such as weather can lead to fewer missed appointments.
• Data-driven decision-making:
  Route optimisation software uses data on customer locations, traffic patterns, and field service tech availability to create the most cost-effective and efficient routes.
• Increased sustainability:
  Route optimisation means your mobile workers spend less time driving, which boosts efficiency and supports field service sustainability.

Simply put, route optimisation helps operations run smoothly. No matter your industry, you’ll likely see benefits from your technician uptime, resource efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

Route optimisation software analyses multiple variables to generate optimal routes. It can consider the distance between job sites, estimated time for a service appointment, and even the availability of resources needed for the job at hand.

Route optimisation solutions often integrate GPS and geographic information systems (GIS) data. They also incorporate real-time traffic data, enabling dispatchers to adjust routes on-the-fly based on changing conditions, such as accidents. This flexibility helps reduce delays and can help dispatchers respond quickly to urgent service requests.

Dispatchers and schedulers can map routes and shifts, incorporating information on every technician's vacation times, breaks, training and certifications. By considering all factors‌ — ‌from resource availability to skill sets‌ — they can create dynamic schedules that maximise productivity. This powerful tool can be used by dispatchers to effectively assign field service technicians.

The best platforms connect to software for enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and other business tools. Apps for smartphones, tablets, and laptop PCs are often cloud-based, like those using Salesforce Field Service. This ensures drivers and technicians can access the software in real time, even if they don’t have internet connectivity.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation are making an impact across field service operations, from AI customer service agents to field service automation. In route optimisation, these advancements help managers serve clients better and faster — and help root out inefficiencies in delivery management or field service processes.

Predictive algorithms can help leaders improve vehicle maintenance and fine-tune scheduling based on weather and other common issues. AI-powered analytics can help monitor performance, analyse trends, and catch outliers.

AI agents, like Agentforce, are at the forefront of field service AI. Agentforce for resource management acts as an AI assistant, directly in the flow of work, to help streamline scheduling and exception handling.

Route optimisation is a powerful tool that can significantly improve efficiency in various industries. Here are a few examples to illustrate how it can work:

Delivery services: A delivery company needs to deliver packages to 20 different addresses in a city. Route optimisation software can help determine the most efficient sequence of stops to minimise travel time and distance. It can even update routes with real-time information provided by customer self service, self-service portals and AI-powered solutions, like Agentforce for Appointment Scheduling.

Home repair services: A company that provides home maintenance and repair services needs to schedule technicians to visit multiple customer sites. By optimising the routes for each technician, the company’s dispatch management can reduce travel time between jobs, increase the number of service calls completed in a day, and improve customer satisfaction.

Waste management: A waste management company’s case load is full of collection points across a city. Route optimisation can help plan the most efficient collection routes, reducing the time and fuel spent on each collection run. This can also help in better resource allocation and timely service.

Retail logistics: A retail company needs new display signage across its regional stores. While effective work order management determines the right steps to take and parts to bring, route optimisation reduces the worker’s drive times and fuel costs.

Emergency services: A utility service needs to respond to a regional power outage. Route optimisation can help determine the fastest and most efficient routes to down lines and blown transformers. When it’s important to act fast, route optimisation gets the technicians where they need to be, quickly and efficiently.

Route optimisation works best when you create a plan, customise your software to meet your needs, and monitor your progress when the software is live.

Before diving into software selection, assess your specific needs and goals. Consider factors such as the size of your business, the volume of service requests, and the geographic areas you cover.

Organise your data. Make sure your internal data — like employee details, locations, and jobs to be done — is up-to-date and accurate. Knowledge management can help.

Your route optimisation system should seamlessly integrate with the rest of your field service management software. This integration improves communication across departments, and ensures that everyone has access to up-to-date information.

Before going live with route optimisation software, piloting the system is crucial for ensuring a smooth implementation. After running initial tests, configure the software to meet your business needs.

After implementation, check the software’s impact on operations. Consider the metrics that matter most in field service, like travel times, fuel costs, and service completion rates. Adjust routing strategies continuously to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Encourage feedback from your teams regarding the software’s usability and impact. Their insights can help identify areas for improvement.

​​Route optimisation software can be a standalone from your customer service software such as Service Cloud, or part of a comprehensive field-service management solution like Salesforce Field Service. Some points to consider when evaluating software include:

• Assess your current solutions: Where are your field service tools falling short? What would you prefer they could do?
• Identify automation opportunities: Are field service technicians or managers putting up with time-consuming or frustrating processes? These issues often can be simplified or eliminated with route optimisation software.
• Survey your professional network: What are your colleagues in other organisations using? How are they handling route optimisation, and are they satisfied with their solutions?
• Read software reviews: Customer feedback can provide useful insight from organisations who have used various systems. Check out G2 to see ‌real-world feedback from people who've used products like Salesforce Field Service.
• Employee resources: Consider options that come with online training resources, such as Trailhead. Online groups, like the Serviceblazer Community on Slack, provide a space for your team to exchange knowledge with others in this line of work.

Routing is a complex challenge for anyone in field service management. With the right field service route optimisation software, you'll be ready to get the right field service technician to the right place at the right time.

Here are additional answers to FAQs to help you better understand route optimisation:

Route optimisation software refers to systems used to plan the fastest and most cost-effective way for your mobile field service workers to get from one appointment to another.

While Google Maps is a powerful tool for basic navigation and route planning, it may not be sufficient for the complex needs of field service management. Unlike Google Maps, route optimisation software in Salesforce Field Service can factor in your resource constraints, weigh complex sequences of scheduling, and provide advanced analytics about your operation.