Case Study: takeout central

Mobile app to streamline food delivery logistics

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Challenge

Takeout Central is a third party online food ordering and delivery service for local restaurants in the Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Durham, NC area. The founders of Takeout Central contacted Website Jungle to build a mobile app that would facilitate and streamline their food delivery logistics process.

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Strategy

Takeout Central provides food delivery to customers from over 15 restaurants. They had to constantly be on the phone trying to coordinate pick-ups from the restaurants and delivery to their customers. This was not only arduous but also prone to issues relating to miscommunication of the address over the phone, delays in delivery, trouble finding the delivery address etc. A well thought out mobile app was the ideal solution for resolving these logistics issues, as well as making the operations scalable.

The first step involved creating the wireframes and UI for the following screens:

  • Driver login
  • Screen for the driver to view food delivery orders
  • Screen to confirm order pick-up
  • Screen for payment and authorizations
  • Close out screen
  • Back-end portal screens

After brainstorming the UI/UX and making essential design changes, the idea went into development for both the iPhone and Android platforms. A back-end portal was also built that would help the control center feed in order and delivery information into the system, which would in turn flow in as notifications to the driver. Once completed and launched, the Takeout Central control center team would take customer orders via their website and/or over the phone on behalf of the restaurants. Once the order was ready for pick-up, a notification is sent from the back-end portal to the mobile app that notifies all delivery drivers that an order is ready for pick-up.

Once the driver picks-up the order, they confirm pick-up via the mobile app. The app provides the driver with the address which can also be mapped in Google maps.

Upon delivery to the customer, the driver is able to show the customer the order details and collect payment through the mobile app. Customers authorize payment by signing the signature screen on the app and they are able to add a % tip. The driver then confirms and closes the order.

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Key Build areas

  • Order entry and pick-up
  • Payment and authorization
  • Google maps integration (including GPS)
  • Notifications and alerts

Results

In conclusion, the Takeout Central app was created to help automate the food delivery logistics process and allow for scalability to several hundred restaurants in the region. The app allows for a paperless process, provides an audit trail and transparency across business functions.