Last Mile Delivery Service With Real-Time Tracking
A mobile application allowing the clients of the major international carrier to manage and monitor their parcel deliveries in real-time with a precise ETA calculation.
Industry
Logistics
Team
16 members
Launched
2022
Country
France
About a Project
Our customer is a leading parcel delivery company that has been offering international shipping services to the B2C sector for more than 20 years now. The company is endeavoring to improve its delivery services for clients. They needed a reliable IT partner who would contribute to their logistics ecosystem development.
Goals set to Cleveroad
Build a package tracking app from scratch enabling live parcel monitoring and managing
Enriching the existing set of client solutions with an additional app to support their digital strategy
Add a new value stream by developing a brand new mobile application to be a part of the enterprise logistics ecosystem
Solutions we've delivered
From-scratch-creation of a mobile app with cross-platform capabilities. Implementation of the functionality allowing users to trace their packages in real-time on the map
Development of the logistics mobile system by our in-house team. Providing the customer with full-cycle product software development, including consulting, business analysis, and project management
Creation of the flexible and customizable mobile platform — a convenient digital space for clients to follow the status of their packages in real-time in one unified interface
Results for the Customer
A user-friendly mobile app with the functionality required so that the clients could keep an eye on their parcels in real time. It allowed the company to ensure brand loyalty and increased clients’ retention rate by providing a better delivery experience for end-users
A well-designed mobile app was successfully integrated into the customer logistics environment. Now, the company can provide the best delivery services to its clients and succeed in a fast-growing international parcel market
A custom-built logistics solution made by Cleveroad allowed the customer to optimize its entire operational and business environment, which resulted in substantial revenue growth and expansion into new markets
Business Challenges
Our customer is an international parcel delivery organization with its headquarters in France. The company strives to provide the best possible delivery experience to its clients, focused on a fully-digital approach. For this purpose, they wanted to develop a mobile solution for tracking packages with precise ETA calculation and real-time updates on the location. The new solution must be well-planned to contribute to the enterprise’s logistics ecosystem refinement. So, our customer needed an experienced technical partner to:
Maintain a high standard of customer experience. Receive a custom mobile app allowing clients to manage and track their packages in transit. It was required to build a user-friendly logistics solution to make deliveries as straightforward and transparent as possible.
Create greater transparency within the delivery process. Introduce a mechanism enabling end-users to manage their parcels in real time with the ability to redirect and modify the shipping time and date. It was necessary to provide truthful digital space for greater ease of tracking the orders.
Easy way to adjust delivery online. Give the ability to clients to govern their parcel deliveries: from redirecting the parcel to selecting a ‘safe place’ to leave the package there. It was required to add redirection options in the app so the receiver can decide when or where to deliver their packages.
Project in Details
We’ve built a package tracking app from scratch, integrated a real-time monitoring functionality, and became a long-term tech partner for the client
Business Architecture
- Our team had to build and implement a cross-platform application from scratch to improve the delivery experience by keeping end-users updated on their shipping status. We thought over the mobile platform for managing and tracking packages in transit to allow the company’s clients to keep tabs on their orders with peace of mind.
- The real-time tracking service is the core of the solution: it allows users to monitor the full path of their packages in real-time using GPS technology. By constantly upgrading the location and status of monitored parcels, the system displays an Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) according to the client's whereabouts.
- We also designed a status-based system to provide transparency and the ability to modify parcel delivery information: delivery date, details for the courier, etc., at different stages of order fulfillment to provide precise and timely updates to receivers. The solution aims to add more flexibility to the service by allowing clients to adjust their delivery preferences according to their parcel status.
Product Essentials
Core functionality describing the solution’s business logic and features of organizing the parcel tracking process
Real-time tracking functionality is the core of the solution. It gives the opportunity to users to keep an eye on their parcel on the map online. This feature enables tracking the parcel’s progress, estimates the delivery time, and gets notified every time there’s an update. The system shows the clients exactly where the driver is at all times.
The Map and Geolocation services are the integral part of almost any type of the logistics solution. These functionalities make it possible to display the object in real-time and visually represent its destination.
A precise ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) was integrated into the app by our team. It allows for keeping clients informed of their parcel shipping date and time and provides them with more accurate info about the estimated delivery time. The ETA algorithm is dynamic. The users can see in the app or be notified if the ETA is suddenly changed — based on the current driver’s location and average vehicle velocity. Additionally, the number and duration of the courier's intermediate stops (e.g., to complete the last order) are also considered when calculating ETA for a particular delivery case.
The notification service is responsible for sending push notifications to clients. A user receives a message from the logistics provider on the day of delivery. This message specifies a one-hour time frame for the delivery.
The redirection options give the opportunity to clients to change the date and place of the delivery. The user can search for the most convenient time and place for receiving the parcel and change the destination of the delivery to any available pick-up parcel shop.
The ability to customize the delivery experience adds more flexibility to services. It gives better rein to clients over the shipping process and allows them to alter the delivery options based on their preferences and schedule.
The find a safe place feature was implemented as a part of our customer's project vision. It makes it possible to provide instructions to the courier in case the recipient is not at home — there is a possibility to select a safe place and instruct a courier to leave the package there.
This functionality also benefits the delivery man, who can quickly and efficiently carry the order without the need to re-arrive or return the package to the warehouse. This helps to optimize the delivery procedure and mitigate the chances of deliveries being missed and delayed.
The courier rating feature helps clients to leave their rating to the courier and the company to keep high standards of customer service. Recipients can assess the quality of delivery by placing their rates and writing reviews for each courier carrying out their packages.
The ratings and reviews are then made available to other package tracking app users to make informed decisions about which delivery driver to appeal to. This information can be further used to boost the convenience of the service and ultimately improve the overall customer experience.
Development in Detail
- We've undertaken two phases within the project: Discovery and Development. We had 2 Product Owners on the customer side, and our team maintained communication with them via the project manager and business analyst. We also conducted a free-of-charge Focus Group involving our C-level company employees to provide additional value to our customer. It was made after the development stage to gather initial feedback from the users before the solution was released. It allowed us to review the product concept from all angles and focus on the core functionality.
- We customized the Discovery phase individually to our customer using our best methods and techniques. Cleveroad's team of a project manager, a business analyst, an UI/UX designer, developers, QA and DevOps engineers, and tech leads. They performed a deep analysis of the business environment and planned the project within the agreed budget with the client. All documentation was prepared during the Discovery phase to ensure the successful development and implementation of the app's core features.
- During the Development, the team has been working in the Scrum framework to maximize the value of the final solution and speed up the product release velocity. The app development was divided into phases, during which a team could implement a part of the product incrementally within the mutually agreed requirements. The customer-side stakeholders reviewed and approved the main sprint artifacts (namely specification in user stories format) iteratively at the beginning of each sprint. The delivery and test reports were examined at the end of every sprint.
- In the Development phase, we've turned the discovery deliverables into the final product considering customer requirements. The team was supposed to enrich the existing set of client solutions with an additional app to provide their customers with better visibility and tracking of the parcels. We worked closely with the customer's in-house development team to ensure all the logistics software solutions operate as a single ecosystem. We’ve created a user-friendly mobile app with all the functionality required to implement the solution business logic.
Technology stack
Tech stack was chosen and used considering customer needs and the solution's business logic
Web Architecture
Frontend
React.js
Backend
Node JS
Mobile architecture
Cross-platform
Flutter
Dart
AWS infrastructure
EC2
S3
Lambda functions
Route 53
API Gateway
Cloudfront
ELB
Amazon RDS
Results Obtained
Raise its brand loyalty by leveraging mobile niche
Our customer strengthened client loyalty with a fresh and seamless delivery experience provided by a mobile app. The user retention rate for the mobile app has also risen: the number of monthly active users grew by 100%, while the number of monthly sign-ins for registered users increased by 220%.
Build customer trust in the delivery experience
Due to the live tracking feature integration, our customer can provide a secure way of shipping orders to users. Now, the clients can manage their parcels via their phones and stay informed about the progress of their delivery in real-time. Engaging more clients via better logistics services provided allowed the enterprise to raise its gross profit.
Scale its logistics system with a brand-new app
Our client received an intuitive and secure mobile app as a part of their logistics ecosystem. The mobile app, created by Cleveroad from scratch, allowed the company to bring its shipping services to a new level of efficiency, which increased the total business capitalization. Together with Cleveroad, the company plans to amplify its start product to boost the brand’s recognition.
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