Scheduled Courier Routes: A Simple Guide for Vancouver Clinics and Dental Labs

A scheduled route is a fixed loop. It has set stops, a set pickup time at each one, and it runs on the same days each week. The same driver follows it, in the same order, so everyone on the loop knows roughly when to expect them.

That is the whole idea. Instead of calling each morning and describing the same trip again, you agree the loop once and then simply have the packages ready.

Dental labs. A lab with a number of dental offices will usually collect impressions from each office in the morning and drop finished cases back in the afternoon. The route does both directions without anyone leaving the bench.

Clinics sending samples to labs. A clinic that sends specimens out most days does not need a different courier each time. A set pickup each morning, going to the lab, covers the regular work.

Pharmacies with daily deliveries. An afternoon round to care homes, clinics and regular patients suits a route particularly well, because the stops and the times rarely change.

1. List your stops. Write down every address you deliver to regularly, and roughly how often. Leave out the places you only send to occasionally — those are better handled as single runs.

2. Pick pickup windows. Decide when you want the driver at your door, and when the stops need to be visited. A window of half an hour is usually easier for everyone than an exact minute.

3. Think about lab cut-off times. If samples or cases need to reach the lab by a certain time, the route has to be planned backwards from that cut-off rather than forwards from your own opening time.

4. Decide how to handle rush extras. A route covers the regular work. Same-day cases and remakes still happen, so decide in advance who books the extra run and how, so it does not become an argument at 3pm.

A route is predictable. Your staff know when the driver arrives, so they know when to have things ready. Nobody has to describe the same set of stops again every morning or chase an update.

It is also easier to account for. One monthly invoice covers the route, instead of a stack of single deliveries to reconcile. For offices that send regularly, that alone tends to be the reason the route is worth setting up.

• How the route is priced, and what counts as a stop
• How much notice you need to change a stop or a time
• What happens on a day you have nothing to send
• Whether rush runs can be added alongside the route
• How the invoice is broken down
• Who you call when something is late

A courier who can answer those clearly before you start will usually keep the route running the same way. If the answers are vague, that is worth noticing.

We run scheduled routes for clinics, dental labs and pharmacies across Metro Vancouver from our base in Burnaby. You can read about scheduled routes, dental lab courier loops, medical specimen runs and pharmacy delivery rounds. To talk through a route for your office, call (604) 865-0798 or send us your stops and frequency.