Introducing Last Mile for customer arrival tracking and more efficient curbside pickup

As COVID-19 restrictions ease, restaurants and retailers are devising plans to reopen locations while adjusting to local health guidelines. Our customers have seen explosive growth of their order-ahead experiences, and they're not alone. According to a NRF survey, over half of consumers have used BOPIS (buy online, pickup in-store) in the past few months, and CNBC reports that the number of orders placed online and picked up at bricks-and-mortar stores by customers surged 208% in April.

However, this transition has not been easy. Designed to serve customers inside a store, many quick-serve restaurants (QSRs) and retailers are facing challenges as they adapt to these new standards.

That's why we're launching Last Mile, our complete, end-to-end solution for customer arrival tracking.

Last Mile enables you to accurately predict when a customer will arrive for a digital order. With the included in-store dashboard, employees can seamlessly view and sequence orders based on actual customer arrival time — no more missed orders from customers forgetting to manually check-in.

The challenges of order-ahead

Restaurants and retailers have often outsourced order-ahead to platforms like Postmates in an effort to get to market faster, but the tradeoff has been costly. Third-party platforms not only eat into margins, they take ownership of the customer relationship from brands.

Last Mile supercharges your own order-ahead experience, providing staff the information they need to meet increasingly high customer expectations. And since Last Mile integrates with existing order management systems, you can skip complex implementations and focus on what matters most: delighting customers.

How it works

Last Mile is powered by new trip tracking functionality added to the Radar SDK. When a customer places an order or taps "I'm on my way," your app can start tracking and start a trip with custom metadata (like order ID, license plate, or car model).

// order placed or user taps "I'm on my way"
let tripOptions = new RadarTripOptions(externalId: "299")
tripOptions.destinationGeofenceTag = "store"
tripOptions.destinationGeofenceExternalId = "123"
tripOptions.mode = .car
tripOptions.metadata = [
  "Customer Name": "Jacob Pena",
  "Car Model": "Green Honda Civic"
]
Radar.startTrip(tripOptions)
Radar.startTracking(.continuous)

// order completed or user taps "I'm here"
Radar.stopTrip()
Radar.stopTracking()

As customers approach your store, the Last Mile dashboard is continuously updated with accurate ETAs for each trip alongside the custom metadata relevant to your use case.

A platform for more than just order-ahead

While Last Mile helps solve the issues QSRs and retailers are facing today, it's designed to continue to drive value as stores build out additional location-aware experiences.

As retailers and QSRs prepare for re-opening, leveraging location will help ensure safe, streamlined customer experiences. Radar has been a close partner of Hathway and has revolutionized the role that location plays within the consumer journey. We're excited for the launch of Last Mile and the substantial impact it will have on the retail and QSR industries.

— Jesse Dundon, CEO at Hathway

Last Mile is available as part of the broader Radar platform that's been used to build everything from on-trip experiences for Traveloka to in-store push campaigns for Ibotta.

Unlike platforms that begin to grow stale the day they're implemented, Last Mile's flexibility lets QSRs and retailers build location experiences that drive customers to their first-party channels so that they can own the customer experience and grow revenue. With over 50% of QSR IT pros saying location technology will be transformative for their business, Last Mile helps you solve order-ahead today while giving you the tools to build differentiated experiences for tomorrow.

Interested in learning more about Last Mile? Contact our sales team. We'd love to hear what you're building.