Meals on Wheels services typically provide vulnerable community members with a selection of meals delivered right to their door. There could be a multitude of reasons why an individual might require such a service, but it’s often because they’re unable to purchase or prepare their own at home.
With our recent acquisition of KL2, we can now offer our varied customers software to help them manage their own Meals on Wheels service. The KL2 team have brought almost 2 decades of meal delivery software experience to the 365 Response Group of Companies. As it’s Meals on Wheels Week, we sat down with Richard Clark (Managing Director at KL2) to collect his top tips for service management and convince him to share his expert knowledge with you too. Luckily for you, he said yes.
Our Top 5 Tips for Managing a Meals on Wheels Service
- Keep client information organised and up to date – Data remains one of the most important assets to any business, but it often doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Accurate data results in better decisions and outcomes. For example, if your organisation arranges a set of food deliveries for a customer without taking into account their likes and dislikes, they might be unhappy with the service.
- Offer your customers true flexibility – Variety is the spice of life, as they say. By giving your customers a vast selection of meals, delivery flexibility, and customisation capabilities, you create a service that allows them to tailor their experience according to their wants and needs. In turn, this benefit hopefully leads to increased personal value that helps you continuously attract, retain, and engage your customers.
- Provide a multi-tier pricing structure – By accommodating for individuals across the financial spectrum, your service will begin to reach more people, it’s that simple. Tailor your options for different incomes and backgrounds as varied as the meals you supply, and don’t shy away from offering more luxurious items for those who’d like to splurge.
- Smart delivery routes are essential – When mapping out your delivery routes there is much to consider, such as the different types of meals to be transported. Are they hot or cold? Is it quicker to use local roads rather than major ones? What customers have specific delivery slots to accommodate outside plans? Does one customer require more assistance on-site than another? Not to mention, delivery delays can lead to frustration from customers and staff, as well as issues with future stock and supply chain arrangements.
- Make your equipment work for you – We live in a digital age, and it is easier than ever to streamline our services with the help of technology. Take note of which aspects of your Meals on Wheels services are working by creating detailed reports and undergoing regular auditing by professional bodies. The more information you collect, the more you’ll begin to discover what works best for you and your team.
Send Meals2People with 365 Response
If you’re looking at this post and realising you might benefit from more guidance, or even perhaps an innovative software solution that could just manage your Meals on Wheels service for you, then you’re in luck – we can easily assist with all of the above!
Meals2People is a browser-based solution the KL2 team created for managing your Meals on Wheels service. Working with many Local Authorities and private meal providers, they have used over twenty years of experience developing software services to provide an end-to-end solution for managing meal choices, resources, route optimisation and dynamic data management, to bring to market a fully customisable solution. We’re exceptionally pleased that the team chose to join the 365 Response Group of Companies, as now we’re able to offer this sophisticated software to our customers too.
If you’d like a demonstration to understand how we can help transform your meal delivery service, then please get in touch today via [email protected]
