Why delivery companies should focus on location technology

Being in the location business we understand the struggles of location technology. During sales calls with delivery companies, tracking is something we’ve heard come up frequently. However, there never seems to be much of a sense of urgency from the companies when it comes to improving location technology, despite how valuable we know it is. So we took it upon ourselves to investigate how important it is for consumers to have a delivery app with high quality location technology. To do that, we conducted a survey to see where location tracking ranks in the issues consumers have with delivery apps, as well as the kinds of issues they face related to location tech. The results of the survey were intriguing, so we decided to also do a deep dive into the customer reviews of the 20 most popular delivery apps. We thought it was worth sharing our findings.

The Survey

The goal of the survey was to get a general idea of the issues that clients experience with delivery apps and specifically where location tracking-related problems rank within the responses. We had over 500 responses from people living in 58 different countries around the world. And they all answered the following questions:

For the opening question respondents had to choose which common problem they’ve experienced with delivery apps the most. The most popular response was expensive fees at 42.6% and coming in second place, 26% of people chose orders arriving late. Orders arriving late has a strong relation to poor location tracking, which I’ll elaborate on later so hold on to that thought for now. For us, it was interesting to see that 7.4% said heavy battery drainage was their main issue and oh boy do we know that’s a problem worth solving (and actually already solved ). So, to the delivery companies out there, a quarter of the people we asked have issues with location tracking and that’s hard to ignore.

This was an “all the time” “sometimes” and “no, not really” question and more than half responded that they experience it “sometimes”. So within this pool of respondents, tracking is not a constant problem, but on occasions they’ll find it hard to track their delivery and find themselves staring at their phone wondering why the courier hasn’t moved for the last 10 minutes. Or maybe they have but who knows? One minute they’re 20 minutes away, the next minute they’re right at your doorstep. Tracking the courier shouldn’t be a game of “Where’s Waldo?” but even he’s easier to locate than these couriers sometimes.

Respondents were given four options here, for which one of them was “none”. For the rest, 31.2% chose “wrong ETA time”, 27.6% chose “inaccurate location of the courier”, and 23.1% chose “I can’t track my order in real-time”. Of course, all three problems have something to do with poor location tracking but a wrong eta time being the popular main issue is notable. It indicates that people prefer a realistic and honest ETA rather than a promise of 10 or 20 minutes and having their expectations let down. That is speculation though, maybe we’ll get to the truth in the next question.

What improvements would you like to see when tracking your order?

This was the final question, and one they needed to answer in their own words. There are plenty of comments and it’s difficult to just pick and choose but we’re going to toss a few of our favorites so you get an idea of what people think needs to be improved concerning order tracking. Small disclaimer: we are not responsible for spelling and grammar errors, we’ve kept them word for word so don’t go all high school English teacher on us and them.?

“Real-time location tracker (that works)”

“Just a smooth and accurate tracking of my driver so I can see where he is and when he'll be arriving”

“Notifications sent when an order is delayed for some reason”

“Accurate real-time tracking, constantly refreshing/updating ETA”

“Delivery driver here a lot of battery drain I keep a power bank with me”?

“Better live update with an indicator that it's being live updated. And stable pinning because the order address doesn't need to be randomly changed or based on GPS when I'm just staying at home.”

“More accurate delivery time estimates”

“Improve ETA time accuracy”

Remember that “orders arriving late” was second among common problems people experienced with using delivery apps? Eliminating late orders is a steep hill to climb but reducing the chance of it becoming a common issue is possible with accurate real-time tracking and an updating ETA time. That way, even when an order is inevitably delayed, the customer is informed and is less likely to be bothered by it. That’s why the general consensus when it comes to improving order tracking among our respondents was accurate real-time tracking and a realistic ETA.

Customer and Courier Reviews?

Although the findings of the survey were interesting, it does come from a small pool of people and it’s difficult to generalize based on that information alone. On top of the survey, we decided to look into 1,000+ customer and courier reviews on the 20 biggest delivery apps in hopes to find parallels and similarities with our survey. We’ve identified 5 main issues for customers and 2 main issues for the couriers.

5 Biggest Issues with Location Technology for Consumers

1. Wrong address and location

Sometimes the app has a customer's location at a different place to where they actually are, so their order is placed and delivered to the wrong address. Of the 20 companies looked into, 17 had reviews related to this issue. Plenty of comments specifically describe issues when multiple addresses are saved, and the order gets sent to the last used address, rather than verifying the current location. Obviously this creates many issues with orders arriving late, or even not arriving at all.?

The easy fix to this would be to get the live location of the customer at the time of ordering to make sure the delivery is taken to the correct address. The important note to this is of course making sure that the live location is as accurate as possible, since using a location solution with 150m of GPS drift only adds more problems.

2. GPS accuracy

Well like we said, if you want to use live location it needs to be as accurate as possible. Complaints about GPS accuracy were commonplace in these customer reviews. Relying on GPS alone is a problem if the drift gets over the 100+ meter territory. Many factors can influence GPS accuracy, including older devices, strength of GPS signal in certain cities, or urban canyons in modern cities. This results in delays, lost orders, and cold food. And given the low switching costs, people will just change between apps if their experience is anything similar to this customer:

“Worst experience, GPS location will detect around 500-700 meters distance from our exact location.”

Now, a 500-700 meter drift is substantial and that can happen when GPS coverage is poor in one area. So if you’re a delivery company present in multiple places around the world, you have to consider that some areas have less GPS coverage than others. Reducing that drift starts with relying less on native GPS. GPS accuracy came up in the reviews of 15 of the 20 apps we looked through, meaning customers are clearly noticing, and calling for a better solution.

3. Outside of the delivery zone

App developers will expand their range if there is a lot of demand from one area aka a “hot zone”. That being said, customers have cited in their reviews of receiving a “outside the delivery zone” message even when they are not, and so they cannot place an order. Poor location technology causes these bugs and that leads to confused and frustrated customers.?

Most delivery zones are set up through geofencing technology , which is supposed to be the perfect solution. However, geofences are heavily reliant on GPS accuracy in order to maximize hit rate. Imagine you set up a geofence with a radius of 200 meters, and you have a GPS drift of 200 meters. You could be right in the middle of the geofence but with that drift, you won’t be detected as inside of the geofencing zone. The inaccuracy of GPS puts you right outside the geofence and hence, the outside of the delivery zone problem occurs.

4. Late delivery

No surprise that this is included in light of the survey. It was a popular comment in many reviews across all companies. In the end, poor live tracking and inaccurate ETA’s cause late deliveries. Yes, there’s always going to be external factors that cause a late delivery but improving the location tracking and ETA is in the control of the app developers to mitigate the problem.?

What came up often in the reviews was the time it took for certain delivery drivers to find the right door at the supposed delivery location, or even the right restaurant for pickup. Delivery apps have different ways of tackling this. Some use a Location Pin (we’ll get to that), and others require their customers to give their live location. However, customers are very reluctant to give their live location, as was evident in the customer reviews (we’ll get to that also), therefore, if delivery drivers had access to better GPS accuracy through an improved location technology, they would have a more accurate reading of their live location, and be able to execute deliveries significantly quicker.

5. Location pin issue

When establishing a delivery address, some apps ask the customer to pin their live location. Location pinning is not always accurate and it can be detrimental for the courier struggling to find the delivery location if there is an app fault or if the customer had misplaced the pin. For the customer, it’s also inconvenient to manually (re)pin their location whenever they place an order. The factor of human error coupled with the inaccuracy of the location technology will be bothersome if not addressed.?

“Please improve your pin location. It's always different from the entered address. I don't believe I should have to manually repin my location when it should be auto-pinned using my phone's GPS location or entered address.”

It also seems that some customers are in fact requesting certain apps to install a pinning system rather than relying on live location. Now assuming the pinning system works and is accurate, it would be an easy fix to some of the other issues raised like manually (re) entering an address to asking customers to share their live location. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, the importance of the GPS accuracy on the driver’s device becomes all the more relevant.

6. Bonus: location permissions required

While conducting our research this came up a few times too so we thought, why not include it. Throughout many of the reviews, customers and couriers expressed their concerns regarding?the permission requests they have to filter through before using the app. There’s a taboo around location tracking and in this day and age, it’s a completely understandable comment. What it comes down to is transparency and educating customers about why location permissions are requested. It’s important to establish that location tracking is needed so the driver can find the customer's delivery address quicker and that this only functions when the app is being used (not in the background). For the driver, it’s about being clear that their location is only tracked when they start a shift and it’s not for the company to know where you are but for the customer to know your ETA and for you to find convenient delivery jobs in your immediate vicinity.

Courier Reviews

Courier reviews were equally important to look into as well. The two biggest problems for couriers are GPS accuracy and battery drainage. Couriers rely heavily on location tracking and navigation to do their job. Poor GPS accuracy can affect their job performance and battery drainage can shorten their shifts (unless they bring a power bank). To illustrate, a passionate review from an anonymous courier:

"Same problems with GPS tracking like what others described before me. It's so frustrating, when you’re sitting in the middle of the zone at peak times for 1 hour without an order, due to app bugs regarding location tracking, while all other 3rd party apps I'm using with GPS are working just fine. As location tracking is the main component to this app, you need to look into it ASAP."

It’s important to build an app that serves the couriers well. Tipping is a major part of their job and encourages couriers to perform their deliveries as fast and safely as possible in order to receive tips. Late deliveries are not only irritating for customers, but can also be a point of frustration for delivery drivers, who want to maximize the number of orders they can execute. Spending 5 minutes looking for a front door that you’re supposedly right in front of may not seem like much, but over the course of multiple deliveries, the minutes start to add up.

For the courier to execute their job they need an app with quality location technology so they can deliver in a timely manner and be rewarded for their hard work.

Tackling the issue

In this article, we wanted to showcase the value of location technology for delivery apps. Delivery apps live in a state where switching costs are low between them and competition is high. To stay on top is to offer quality service, and what you should take away from this article and the research is that location technology is integral to that success. Bad location technology has its consequences: cold food, late orders, and orders going “404 not found” are too commonplace. Focusing on improving location tracking will solve ETA issues, delivery zone bugs, GPS drifting, location pinning and orders being sent to the wrong addresses.?

A location SDK can provide solutions to many of the issues addressed in this article. That’s because its primary function is to increase the accuracy and precision of the native location data, and some even improve battery efficiency . Choosing to work with a location SDK service has its benefits. It opens up the chance to get to market quicker, it’s cost-effective as opposed to in-house development, and gives delivery apps the chance to focus on growth and worry less about customer and courier complaints. If you’re left wondering how it achieves all that, we’ve got blogs that detail the benefits of using location SDK’s for delivery apps and how they work for you to check out.?

So, if you’re a delivery app company and are looking for ways to improve the location quality of your service, consider exploring the possibility of using a location SDK and staying ahead of your competition.

- Marc Kranendonk