The RouteBasic quickstart guide
Get RouteBasic up and running for your business in five minutes or less.
For many small delivery businesses, the amount of money you can make depends on how many jobs you do in a day. RouteBasic can help you get more done by making sure that your drivers stay on time and are running their route in the most efficient way possible. In this tutorial, I'll walk you through the steps needed to run your very first route.
Download driver app
The first thing you need to do is to download the RouteBasic iOS App or Android App (you can also search for "RouteBasic" on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store). Once you do that, open the app and enter your name and phone number. Be sure to include the country code e.g. +16041234567 so that your customers can reach you.
After that, you'll see an empty page called Stops. This is where you'll be adding all the customers you need to visit for the day. Click on Add Stop and enter the customer name, phone number (enter your own phone number if you'd like to test customer notifications) and address. Hit Add Stop to Route to add it to the Stops listing. Choose an address that you are familiar with and repeat this 2 -3 more times so you have a list of stops to work with. These stops are not yet in route optimal order, so let's fix that.
Optimize route
Once you've added 2 -3 stops, click the Optimize Route button on the top right, and select your starting location. You could either use your current location by choosing Start from Current Location (detected automatically using your phone's GPS) or a different one e.g. your business address by choosing Set Starting Location on Map.
Wait a few seconds and the app automatically sorts your stops from nearest to furthest, together with estimated arrival timings (ETAs) so you know exactly when you will arrive at each stop. If you want to change the order in which you visit your stops, simply hold and press the hamburger icon on each stop to drag the stop up or down. RouteBasic will automatically reoptimize the route and give you updated ETAs for each stop.
Clicking on the Live Map tab on the bottom navigation bar brings up a map with your real time location together with the optimized route.
View stop details
Next, go back to the Stops listing and click on the first (top most) stop. This brings you to the Stop Detail page. There are three main actions you can do here.
Going Next lets you send a text message with an ETA and live tracking link to the customer.
Navigate opens turn by turn directions with real time traffic in Google Maps or Waze.
Call lets you make a direct phone call to the customer.
In this next exercise, we are going to test RouteBasic's customer notifications feature. On the Stop Detail page, click on the Edit Stop link and add your personal cellphone number, before clicking Update Stop to save the changes.
Send ETA notification
Next, press the Going Next button to indicate that you are headed to that stop. This will trigger a text notification to be sent to the personal cellphone number you specified earlier. Drivers can edit the message to add whatever information e.g. "I'll be waiting for you at the lobby" they want to.
Check your phone for a new text message. The notification will include the ETA (estimated time of arrival) of the driver as well as a link that lets your customer track the driver until he arrives.
Complete stop
Finally, we are going to complete a stop. Open the app again and head to the Stop Detail screen you were at previously. Click on Complete and you'll be taken to the Stop Completion screen. Here, you can mark the delivery as Received by Person or Safe Dropped (for contactless delivery). For proof of delivery (POD), you can either include a photo or ask the customer for his signature. At the end, drivers can also include a short note about the delivery.
Once completed, click the x on the top right to exist the Stop Detail screen and the stop shows up in the Completed tab of the Stops listing screen. If you want to get a detailed picture of driver productivity and performance that includes photo POD, customer signatures and timestamps, you need to sign up for a company account at www.routebasic.com and link your device by adding a driver and specifying the RID on your driver app.
If you have any questions about how to use the app, or would like to give feedback, please send an email to support@routebasic.com.
Need a free route planner to manage your delivery business? Take a look at our 1-minute video and give RouteBasic (available on iOS and Android) a try!