API-First delivery software: Why Integration Matters
When considering the purchase of delivery software, your first thought may gravitate toward the functions they offer – does the platform allow you to track your deliveries, optimize your routes, confirm payments, utilize an app for drivers, etc. Now consider this question: How does the software communicate with the tools you already use?
From an API-first perspective, the right integration capabilities and data exchanges prove far more important than features. Through strategic integration delivery management becomes a fully interoperable, connected ecosystem.
This is especially true for the emerging delivery tracking app space; a space where interoperability defines the solution.
API-First: What It Means
When companies speak of an “API-first” strategy, they suggest the system was purpose-built to integrate, i.e. share data and operate in unison with other apps.. An API or application programming interface, defines the rules and enables communication between different software.
An application programming interface (API) enables two applications to talk to each other. It also determines what data from one application is shared or exchanged with the other.
Take an eCommerce website – the website’s API can share an order’s details with the delivery platform about the same time the order is placed. The delivery tracking application uses the API to update the customer on the parcel’s whereabouts after a driver is assigned. Instead of delivery managers manually entering an order’s information in multiple places – the information is shared or exposed through an API.
A delivery tracking app for a small business essentially becomes part of a broader, fully interoperable multi-vendor solution.
What Are The Benefits of Integrating
Say, for instance, you’re a small business with 30 deliveries per day – manually entering thirty delivery addresses, phone numbers, additional notes, customer notes, order information, and instructions will be tedious yet achievable. But what happens when the business grows to 300, even 3,000 deliveries daily?
A delivery tracking app with an integrated API removes the need for extra, manual data entry. With integration, information on customer order is transferred directly into the appropriate delivery silo.
There is no need for managers to re-enter the same information into multiple systems or programs, or for an additional admin headcount to perform these repetitive tasks.
Your Delivery Needs Software That Meets The Ecosystem It Works In
A major mistake businesses make when integrating new software revolves around basing their decisions solely on the prospective application’s functions.
A promising delivery tracking app’s integration capabilities could determine how well it works within your broader technical ecosystem. Businesses utilize multiple programs – CRM, accounting, ERP, point-of-sale, eCommerce, and customer management tools. You wouldn’t replace all of these programs with the delivery application, however, you can integrate it with the tools you already utilize daily.
Take a step back and analyze your current business’ technical landscape. If one utilizes other software’s API, their operations transform into a fully unified, integrated environment with minimal wasted time or resources.
APIs: Real Time Information For Real Time Experiences
When consumers place orders, they expect to receive the goods they ordered within specific windows of time and – they expect the updates reflecting an order’s statuses in real-time.
Integrations enable the above by ensuring information on orders, deliveries, and their statuses are synchronized. After a manager updates the driver or delivery plan, an event or status change becomes visible to the customer-facing API in exactly the same way – thus eliminating the need for an employee to manually update an end-consumer on a delivery’s status. It also results in a much better customer experience, an outcome that is largely enabled by a delivery tracking app’s API capabilities.
That’s a prime reason why the delivery tracking space will become increasingly reliant on APIs.
APIs: Enabling Smaller Business Automation
Integrations appear particularly useful for smaller organizations – ones that do not have the headcount to manage operations at scale.
A delivery tracking app allows small business owners to automate certain, repetitive tasks. The same information is synced throughout various applications – there is no need for a dispatcher to manually update a customer or delivery driver on an order’s status change, pick-up time, delivery time, etc.
As a smaller business grows, automated, interconnected deliveries scale with it while eliminating administrative bloat. A few of your application’s automated updates could resemble the following:
• an administrator receives a new order
• the software picks a driver to assign the order to
• the software picks up the item
• the driver transports the product out and proceeds towards delivery
• upon delivery the software marks order complete
As a small business owner, an automated ordering system reduces the amount of administrative overhead you must personally manage.
Fewer Integration Gotchas Reduces Operational Issues
Beyond reducing manual data entry, APIs reduce room for error. Missed or mistyped information, especially phone numbers or deliver addresses, results in negative customer experiences.
APIs ensure that the correct information reaches the correct destination.
An integrated delivery tracking app prevents orders from being delivered incorrectly, which reduces complaints and delivery return hassles.
Integration-Driven Applications Create Room For Automation
The ability to utilize and implement automation is another crucial aspect where a delivery platform with robust integration capabilities proves superior compared to a feature-rich but non- or poorly integrated software.
An API integration example: A customer makes an order, that order ends up in the delivery warehouse, the delivery system picks up the order and the necessary driver, selects an optimized delivery route, and provides the customer with real-time tracking. None of these events or statuses would update automatically or sync unless an integration existed between the delivery platform and the warehouse management software. The potential benefits of integration-facilitated automation will redefine customer experiences across the board.
The Bottom: The better a delivery tracking platform is integrated with its surrounding ecosystem of software, the more automation it allows for, and the broader consumer benefits across the board.
The Bottom-Line: What Makes a Great Delivery Platform?
Features vs. integration capabilities – what makes a stronger choice for building a robust delivery system? Features are appealing, but an application with fewer features but excellentAPI performance will likely offer stronger value compared to one with greater feature depth, but with fewer integration options.
Consider the following highlights when evaluating a delivery platform:
- A2P API Documentation
- The software’s ability to share information and update different platforms in near-real-time
- Status and webhook support
- Real-time or near-real-time status sharing across different technical platforms
- eCommerce compatibility
- CRM & Point-of-sale capabilities
- Customization and flexibility
- Data security
The platform’s ability to scale according to your business needs.