Since its creation, the French meal delivery startup, Frichti, has chosen Google Maps Platform to allow its customers to follow their order in real time.

 

Goals:

• Real time delivery tracking & supply of geolocalized data for the predictive model.

 

Results:

• 75% reduction in the number of calls to Customer Services to ask where the delivery person is located

 

Frichti’s experience, pleasure from order taking to the table

Frichti has become a major player in the delivery of meals at home and in the workplace in Paris and its inner suburbs. In the space of 4 years, the startup has increased its range of meals offered to customers on a daily basis, rising from 6 courses initially to more than 50 today!

Frichti’s success is accompanied by new challenges, such as an expanding customer base, while maintaining the same speed of delivery and reducing the waste of raw materials during the preparation of dishes.

“Our goal is to be able to predict the number of dishes that will be sold so that we don’t throw anything away. This is a challenge that our competitors who buy from restaurants don’t have to deal with,” explains Damien Leroux, Frichti’s Chief Technical Officer.

 

Mapping is part of our core business

“We use geolocation data to feed our predictive models, to know how many orders are to be delivered to exactly where,” Frichti’s CTO continues. The prediction algorithm is based on different types of structured data (locations, orders, deliveries), cross-referenced with more difficult-to-predict events, such as contingencies. “We know what to cook in what proportions and how many delivery people to assign to which areas. Geolocalized data is critical. It’s partly thanks to geolocalized data that we maintain waste rates at a very low level,” continues Damien Leroux.

Right from the start, Frichti chose to use Google Maps Platform with the Maps JavaScript API to allow customers to track their delivery staff in real time on a map, as Nicolas Valençot, Squad Leader B2C and Guild Leader Mobile at Frichti tells us: “When we developed the apps and the site, the ease of use and comprehensiveness of Google Maps solutions was clear and remains the best solution today.”

 

” When we developed the apps and the site, the ease of use and comprehensiveness of Google Maps solutions was clear and remains the best solution today. “

— Nicolas Valençot, Squad leader B2C et Guild leader Mobile, at Frichti

 

In concrete terms, once a customer has placed an order on Frichti’s site or mobile application, they receive an SMS to inform them that their order is with the bicycle delivery person (or electric scooter for long distances). The message contains a link to a mapping application that allows them to view the progress of the delivery and to communicate on a precise schedule. For Damien Leroux: “Tracking the delivery person is a very simple use case, but one that has enormous added value for the customer. With the map, information is displayed and it brings genuine reassurance to the customer.” Thanks to this application, Frichti has reduced the number of calls to their customer services asking “Where is my order?” by 75%.

Web Geo Services has been supporting Frichti with Google Maps since 2017. They provided expertise during the transition to the Google Maps Platform with their Customer Care team to answer developers’ questions. Web Geo Services and Frichti are evaluating options to integrate innovation into the startup’s business model. “Work is ongoing to improve the algorithm for the management of delivery drivers, where Google Maps Platform technologies could allow us to improve it through route calculation,” confides Nicolas Valençot.

Frichti also uses Google Cloud Platform and Big Query to host and query its data, as well as Firebase for its applications (AB/Tasting).