Delivery Time Windows: Keep Every Receiving Hour

A driver pulls up at a restaurant at 7:40, the shutters are down, and nobody answers the phone. The driver either waits, burning time the rest of the route needs, or comes back later, which is a second trip you pay for twice.

Most of these problems have the same root cause: the route was planned without the customer's delivery time window. This guide explains how to collect time windows, keep them accurate, and plan routes that actually respect them.

Receiving hours vs requested delivery slots

Two different things often get called "time windows", and it helps to keep them apart.

• Receiving hours are when a customer can physically accept goods. A café might receive from 7:00 to 10:30, before the lunch rush. A building site might accept deliveries from 7:00 to 16:00 but not during the crane lift at midday. A supermarket may only open its goods-in door from 6:00 to 9:00.
• Requested delivery slots are what the customer asks for on a specific order: "Please come between 9 and 11 tomorrow, our cold room is being cleaned before that."

Receiving hours are fixed rules that rarely change. Requested slots are one-off and belong to the order. Your planning needs both: the standing receiving hours as the default, and the requested slot overriding them when the customer asks.

Why routes that ignore time windows cost you

A route that looks short on the map can be expensive on the road. When windows are ignored:

• Drivers wait at closed doors. Fifteen minutes here and twenty there adds up to an hour lost per route.
• Second trips happen. If the driver cannot wait, the stop moves to the afternoon or the next day, with extra kilometres, fuel and driver hours.
• Fresh and frozen goods suffer. Products that sit in the truck longer are a risk you do not want.
• Customers lose trust. A restaurant delivered mid-service remembers it.

The shortest route is not the best route if half the stops are closed when you arrive.

How to collect receiving hours and keep them up to date

Good time window planning starts with good data. A few practical habits:

1. Ask at onboarding. When you open a new customer account, ask for receiving hours per weekday, not just "mornings". Many businesses have different hours on Saturday or close one day a week.
2. Record more than one window if needed. A restaurant might take deliveries from 7:00 to 10:00 and again from 15:00 to 17:00. Store both.
3. Let drivers report changes. Drivers are the first to notice that a shop now opens at 8:00 instead of 7:00. Give them an easy way to flag it, and make sure someone in the office updates the customer record.
4. Review seasonally. Beach bars, ski resorts and schools change hours with the seasons. Set a reminder to check these customers.
5. Note access rules alongside hours. Loading bays, pedestrian zones with delivery hours, or "use the back entrance after 9:00" all affect when a stop is realistic.

Wide vs narrow windows

Not all windows are equal. A customer receiving from 6:00 to 18:00 gives the planner lots of freedom. A customer receiving from 7:00 to 8:00 does not.

• Wide windows are easy to fit and act as flexible filler for the route.
• Narrow windows decide the shape of the route. Miss one and there is often no second chance that day.

If you can, talk to customers with very narrow windows. A key safe or a storage room can turn a one-hour window into a three-hour one, and wider windows make every route around them cheaper.

Planning order: tight windows first

When building a route by hand, a useful rule is: place the tight windows first, then fit the flexible stops around them.

• Start with stops whose windows are narrowest or earliest.
• Fill the gaps between them with customers who have wide windows nearby.
• Check that the first stop's window opens close to the time the truck actually arrives.

That last point matters. If the first customer only receives from 8:00, there is no reason for the truck to leave the depot at 6:00 and wait outside. Leave the depot later instead of waiting at the first stop. The driver's hours are better spent at the end of the route than parked in front of a closed door.

Unloading time per stop

Driving time is only half of the plan. Time spent at each stop is often the bigger unknown.

Unloading ten crates at a corner shop might take five minutes; a pallet at a building site, with a signature and empties to collect, can take thirty. If your plan assumes the same few minutes everywhere, the route slips further behind with each stop and the late windows are missed.

Set an unloading time per customer based on what actually happens there: stairs, a long walk from the parking spot, a customer who checks every item. Adjust it when drivers report that a stop always takes longer.

Don't forget rush hours

A stop that is ten minutes away at 6:00 can be thirty minutes away at 8:15. Plans that use one fixed driving speed all day look fine on paper and fail in the city centre at peak times.

When planning, keep in mind when the morning and evening rush build up in your area, and try to keep narrow windows on the edge of town away from the busiest periods on the main roads.

Tell customers a realistic window, not "sometime today"

"We'll be there sometime today" forces your customer to keep someone near the door all day. A realistic window, for example "between 10:00 and 11:00", lets them plan staff, keep the cold room free, and be ready to sign.

A good delivery window:

• is calculated from the actual planned route, not a guess;
• is short enough to be useful, typically around an hour;
• is sent in advance by email or SMS, so nobody has to call the office to ask.

Why a window, not live driver tracking

Showing customers the driver's live position sounds helpful, but customers watch the dot and call when it moves "the wrong way", and drivers are effectively tracked by every customer on their route. A delivery window calculated from the route gives customers what they really need, a time to be ready, while protecting drivers' privacy. The office can still see the live map; customers see a clear window.

Handling late changes

Plans change. A customer calls at 9:00 to say they are closed until noon, or an urgent order comes in for the same route.

• Re-plan the remaining stops, not the whole day. Stops already delivered stay as they are.
• Check which windows are now at risk and contact those customers early, not after the window has passed.
• Send an updated window to the customers whose time has moved.
• Record the reason. If the same customer changes hours every week, update their receiving hours instead of fixing it by phone each time.

How BeeRoutes helps

BeeRoutes was built for distributors and wholesalers delivering to shops, cafés, restaurants and building sites. Its route optimization takes time windows and customer receiving hours into account together with unloading time per customer, truck weight and volume capacity, shifts and breaks, priorities and rush-hour traffic measured for your area.

Drivers get an app with built-in voice navigation and proof of delivery (name, signature, photo), while the office follows everything on a live map. Customers receive a one-hour delivery window by email or SMS, calculated from the live route rather than the driver's position, and can order through a portal with delivery slots.

Plans start at €49/month for 3 trucks; see pricing for details. You can try it with your own customers and receiving hours: start your free 14-day trial, no card required.