How Dispatch delivery could disrupt your company's fleet for good

It wouldn’t be farfetched to describe Dispatch as “like Uber but for part suppliers and distributors.” But more than a quick ﬁx, the fairly new company is quickly positioning itself to be a partner to contractors in the HVAC industry and beyond.

With its ﬂeet of delivery vans, operating in more than a dozen cities, Dispatch’s delivery services have been known to relieve, and in some cases, replace a company’s need for a truck ﬂeet — enabling owners to redirect those resources elsewhere.

“Our goal is to be the go-to delivery solution for distribu-tors, suppliers, businesses, and technicians,” says company co-founder Ryan Hanson, “and put them back in control of local delivery.”

The process is simple and straightforward: Orders are taken online and received by nearby drivers. The driver sends an ETA for pick up, drop off, and can loop the customer in on the timeframe. Once the package is delivered, the drivers collect a signature right on their phone. Done. But getting the concept up and running, wasn’t as easy, says Hanson.

Walk us through how you got the wheels rolling on Dispatch. How many trucks did you start out with?

My business partner, Andrew Leone, worked in the distribution industry and found a major gap in ﬁnal mile delivery. Technicians were wasting time and money having to leave job sites to go get parts, or even wait for parts to be delivered. What if they could stay focused on the task at hand and have the parts come to them in a predictable, efficient way? This would allow technician to get one more job done and drive company revenue. With this realization, the idea for Dispatch was born.

Dispatch started with the two of us making daily deliveries, with the help of our family and friends. It’s crazy to look back and see how much the company has grown. Between the two of us, we completed hundreds of deliveries around town and now the team is completing thousands a day all across the country.

How many markets are you in now and how many trucks do you have now?

Today, we have our own ﬂeet of about 45 trucks making deliveries in more than a dozen major markets. That number doesn’t include the hundreds of independent drivers using their own vehicles to drive for Dispatch.

How many businesses have given up their ﬂeets and now use Dispatch exclusively for part transport to and from the job site?

Quite a few! If they haven’t given up their ﬂeets and made the decision to exclusively utilize Dispatch, they have cut down on the size of their ﬂeet exponentially.

Going into the busy summer construction season, what’s going to be Dispatch’s main focus?

To continue delivering on our SLA promise. The summer is far and away our busiest season and it’s important that we continue going above and beyond with the services that we provide our customers.

In November, we raised over $7 million in funding which brought our total to roughly $10 million in total for the year. This allowed us to expand our market reach, grow our teams, and invest in the Dispatch ﬂeet. We’ll be expanding even further this year.

For more information about Dispatch’s delivery reach, visit dispatchit.com. This article originally appeared in the May 2019 issue of SNIPS Magazine.

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Emell Derra Adolphus has more than a decade of writing and journalism experience. He is senior editor of ENR’s Top Lists and Survey Rankings at ENR magazine and frequently contributes stories on technology, climate resiliency, diversity, equity and inclusion.