Adding Route Planning to Your App Increases User Loyalty and Improves User Experience

Let’s suppose that you are looking for a property and you have downloaded a real estate app on your smartphone. In the app, you are able to find the different properties listed with addresses but you need to now get on to another app, for instance, Google Maps to locate these addresses. Imagine how convenient would it be if this same information was available in the real estate app, where you would be able to view all the property and its locations on the map itself! Adding route planning to your app doesn’t only improve user experience but its convenience ensures that the user retains and uses your app.

There are many apps that track location such as social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat that allows your friends to view your location, Zomato offers the best food deals around your area, etc. The route planning features helps you to send push notifications which leads to user engagement.
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Apps that can Benefit from Route Planning Feature

Real Estate Apps
As mentioned earlier, real estate apps should incorporate the route planning feature so that the user can easily view the properties on the maps, how far each property is from the other if they wish to check out multiple properties in a day, check the neighbourhood and shops around, etc. This feature also helps agents to plan their day and site visits with their customer. Real estate apps should also have additional route planning features like creating live tours which will help uberize the real estate industry.

Healthcare Apps
Healthcare apps that lists doctors and dispensaries could also use the route planning feature for the benefit of the patient and the doctors (in case of home visits). A healthcare app with built-in route mapping would allow the doctor to locate the patient’s address and deliver their services in case of a home visit; on the other hand, it would allow the patient to locate the doctor’s location, the time it will take to reach there and the best possible route.

Travel Apps
Gone are the days where a paper map was used to locate places or navigate or find a route; it’s time where Google Maps save the day by not only providing a route to your destination but also gives live updates in case of a traffic jam, accident, or road closure. Hence, it is absolutely imperative for travel apps to have an in-built route tracker providing all of the same information. Just imagine how convenient it would be for the user!
Say for example, Sarah is backpacking across Italy and she downloads a travel app. She has an itinerary for the day to travel to tourist destinations, visit restaurants and then party at night. A route planner in that travel app will allow Sarah to plan her day by marking the locations of the places that wishes to visit and show her the best possible way to see them all. It can also build routes for walking tours, save them and share them on social media apps.

Parking Apps
For people driving in crowded cities or visiting other countries or cities, a parking app with a route planner would be very convenient. Parking apps like Parke, allow users to find nearby parking spots displaying also the route to reach there from their current destination.
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Advantages of Route Planning
Now, let’s take a look at the advantages of route planning for users. 

Like, we’ve discussed before there are various advantages of route planning. Take for instance, Uber, an that offers car service at the customer’s doorstep. Uber has an in-built route planner that allows the user to track the car and also navigate them as quickly to their pick up location. In case of ordering an Uber Pool, the route planner prioritizes the stops ensuring that there is no wastage of time by running around in circles to pick up passengers.
Route planning also helps the user to manage their time by checking the time taken to reach their destination and ensuring that they are on the correct route. In case, of planning a travel itinerary it allows the user to mark their destinations on the map and then follow a route that is convenient.
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Best Route Planning Software in 2020

Route4Me
Route4Me is the world’s most used route sequencing and optimization software for small businesses and enterprises. This software allows the user to share, create and manage routing plans on their smart devices. The API is free of cost but the app company needs to pay for functionalities like in-app voice-guided navigation, scheduled customer notifications, delivery analytics, and a customer relationship management system. This software is ideal for field sales, field marketing, field merchandising, territory management and optimization.

HERE
One of the big players in the route planning market is HERE. The software provides a route optimization solution that takes into account the starting points and various destinations and allows you to edit routes, calculate a matrix of routes and multiple waypoints, and update past routes. 

Badger Maps
Badger maps is a software that can be used across multiple industries. It provides the tools and applications for sales reps to be more effective in the field. It enables the sales team to manage their by combining Google Maps, route optimization, schedule planning, data from the CRM, and lead generation on the sales persons mobile device. Badger offers the best software mapping solution to map customer accounts and sales routes.

MapAnything
MapAnything is a location intelligence solution that steers the company towards the right direction. This software is a Location of Things solution that streamlines business goals with field activities on a unified platform that is designed for field sales, service teams, and fleet management.

ElasticRoute
ElasticRoute is a route planning solution that is best for third party logistics providers, carrier’s logistics services, distributors, food and beverage delivery construction, waste and recycling management, postal, parcel and courier, etc.
It produces natural cluster-based routes which adds a human touch to the optimization process. ElasticRoute can plan over 1000 stops in 90 seconds (which is a record) and can also deal with challenges like unplanned changes to deliveries.
To view more software for route planning, refer to https://www.capterra.com/route-planning-software/.

To Conclude
Route planning for your app can scale your app within a short period of time with minimum cost. Instead of incorporating the route planning feature at a later stage, we recommend you to consider investing more time and money at the very start to build this functionality within your app.
If you wish to incorporate route planner into your app, contact the App Scoop mobile app developers Vancouver team. We will help you in this challenging task of developing a system that will enable your app users to edit and share routes. We promise to help you improve your user’s experience and hence, improve customer loyalty by providing you with features such as scheduling, real-time chats, push notifications and a support centre.