About LA Waters

As a high-quality water delivery service in Southeast Louisiana, LA Waters is dedicated to providing residential, commercial, and industrial customers with great-tasting water and exceptional customer service. LA Waters delivers from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and Northshore to Houma/Thibodaux and everything in between.  When you call LA Waters, a real person answers the phone because they believe great customer service starts from the very first hello. The business is built on a foundation of prompt and reliable service, with trained drivers delivering right to the customer's doorstep to ensure a smooth and hassle-free experience that you won't want to miss out on.

Today, the company efficiently serves over 1,000 unique customers with 2 delivery trucks. Out of these customers, two percent of them have multiple stops, with one customer serving 400 sub accounts. There are 20 Day Labels and 2 most-used Routes.

LA Waters offers its customers a wide variety of products including:

These products are both Spring and Alkaline water, each based on the preference of each customer and are delivered at the residential and commercial levels.

LA Waters also provides several accessories for their products such as:

• 1 and 5 Gallon Bottle Pumps
• DIY Cleaning Kits
• Hot & Cold Water Coolers 

The Challenge

Before becoming an Advantage Customer, LA Waters was faced with the challenge of finding a reliable operational system to support its growth. The founders, facing a decision on how to better serve their customers and improve route management, recognized the need for a solution that would set the business up for long-term success. 

LA Waters Operations Manager, Peggy Mendoza, stated "I started LA Waters 4 years ago- so we were looking for a system that would be good for our company. We have a couple of water company execs from other companies on my advisory board and this system came highly recommended." By leveraging the expertise of their advisory board, the company was able to confidently select a system that not only met their immediate needs but was also endorsed by industry veterans.

The Solution

After some research into route accounting solutions, LA Waters chose Advantage Route. The founders, focused on long term growth from the start and looking to avoid manual processes and inefficient routing, were searching for software that would scale with their business.  They found it with Advantage RMA™. The software provided the tools to manage the business end-to-end, from order placement to route management, to invoicing and billing. Advantage software was feature rich, robust, reliable, and provided the flexibility to accommodate growth and changes. Within months, the company was operating efficiently and had a team with well-defined operational processes and a satisfied customer base.

These Advantage Route tools made a great impact in LA Water's profitability and ability to provide great customer service:

1 - Truck Routing:

ARI's routing software supports the company's delivery operations by optimizing truck daily routes with great efficiency. The routing technology is not static and discourages pre-planned routes. Instead, it is dynamic and gives real-time information that allows drivers to foresee and manage delays and ensure timely deliveries.  For example, by implementing Advantage Route's custom-built routing and tracking system, LA Waters gained the ability to optimize daily delivery routes in real time, even when there were additions or cancellations in the day's delivery.  The software's ability to account for live traffic data and provide accurate ETAs is a feature that greatly improved customer satisfaction. Leveraging this real-time data on traffic, weather conditions, and customer locations also minimized travel time and fuel consumption, saving the company a significant amount in operational costs. The routing feature alone saved LA Waters operational costs and created a noticeable improvements in customer satisfaction due to more reliable and punctual service.

2 - Inventory Management:

The inventory management feature significantly improved the company's operational efficiency by providing a real-time, comprehensive view of stock levels. By integrating with sales and supply data, the system automatically tracked incoming and outgoing products, preventing both stockouts and overstocking. This predictive capability allowed the company to make more informed purchasing decisions, reducing wasted capital and storage costs. Furthermore, the software streamlined the entire inventory process, from automated reordering to accurate fulfillment, ensuring that products are always available to meet customer demand while minimizing unnecessary overhead.

3 - Invoicing:

The invoicing feature streamlined the billing process by automating the creation and delivery of invoices to customers. By pulling data directly from sales, the software automatically generates accurate invoices, eliminating manual data entry and reducing the risk of human error. This automation not only speeds up the time it takes to send out bills but also makes it easier to track payment status in real-time. With features like automated payment reminders and secure online payment portals, Advantage's RMA significantly shortened LA Water's accounts receivable cycle, improving the company's cash flow and freeing up valuable resources of the team.

The Result:

Implementing Advantage Route

Working with Advantage Route to scale the business has been instrumental. LA Waters has a reliable operational route accounting systems and the real time automation that provides the team with the business visibility to make smart business decisions, plan for growth, and provide the high-quality service they aim to provide customers.  

LA Waters sees Advantage Route as a great partner with a team of people passionate about what they do and the success of their customers. When LA Waters implemented the software, Advantage provide thorough training and provided ample self-learning resources to increase the user's knowledge of the software.  After implementation was completed, the support team proved responsive in helping LA Waters navigate through any challenges with ease, which has made daily operations more efficient and stress-free.

LA Waters has seen consistent growth over its four years in business and credits the partnership with Advantage Route for it's smooth route operational efficiency and ability to equip drivers with the tools they need to service customers at every delivery.