Proof of delivery from the driver's phone: how to roll it out

It is six in the evening. The vans come back, drivers drop the signed delivery notes in a pile, and someone in the office goes through them one by one. If a customer disputes Monday's order on Thursday, someone has to find the paper. If it does not turn up, the customer wins.

To get proof of delivery from the phone, the driver closes each stop in an app with a photo, signature, PIN or barcode, and the proof is stored with the route at that moment. The office sees it without waiting for the van to return, and the customer can get it by email.

What proof of delivery should include

Proof holds up in a dispute when it answers four questions tied to the stop: what was delivered, to whom, when and where. On top of that goes the recipient's evidence. Evidence types and their trade-offs are covered in our digital proof of delivery guide.

Which evidence to ask each customer type for

• Corner shops and grocery stores. The manager's signature on the delivery note and a photo of the goods on the counter. The typical dispute is about missing items.
• Restaurants. Early deliveries, sometimes with the shutter half up. A photo at the agreed spot, and a signature when someone is there.
• Pharmacies. A signature with the recipient's name, or a PIN sent before arrival.
• Hardware and wholesale distribution. A signature on the delivery note lines and a photo of the packages.
• Home LPG delivery. A signature and a short form with cylinders delivered and collected.

Ask for one piece of evidence per customer type. If every stop takes three steps, drivers end up skipping them halfway through the route.

How to roll it out in five steps

1. Pick the evidence per customer type. Use the list above and write it down. That sheet is the rule, and the rule does not depend on who plans.
2. Test with one or two vans for a week. Pick the drivers with the most stops. Every afternoon, check how many deliveries have no proof and why.
3. Tell drivers what is in it for them. With proof on the phone, a dispute is no longer their word against the customer's. And they stop carrying delivery notes all day.
4. Plan for no signal. Some areas have no coverage. The app has to store the proof offline and sync when signal returns, or drivers will go back to paper.
5. Connect proof to billing. Disputes land on whoever invoices. If the proof is not on the order or in your ERP, someone will go looking for it by hand.

After the first week, roll it out to the rest of the fleet in groups.

How to know what was delivered without calling each driver

When every stop is closed on the phone, the office sees the route's status as it progresses: delivered, pending and failed with a reason. The calls asking whether the driver has been to a given customer go away, and drivers stop answering the phone every half hour.

The same information is useful at the end of the day: how many deliveries failed, why and in which areas. That feeds tomorrow's plan.

How Routal handles it

In Routal, proof is part of the stop. The driver closes each delivery in Routal for Drivers with a photo, signature, PIN, barcode or form, offline too. If a delivery fails, the reason is recorded on the spot.

Dispatchers see every proof on the day's route. The recipient can get it by email, and the REST API and webhooks send it to your ERP or billing. The driver app is included, with no separate licence.