He arrived at the meeting with a folder. Inside the folder were three screenshots printed in color. They were of his competitor's app. He placed them on the table, neatly aligned, like someone presenting evidence at a trial.
"I want an app."
His name was Fernando. Transport company, eighteen trucks, based in Murcia, clients all over the Levante region. He had been running the business since his father retired six years ago. The father ran it with a landline, a secretary, and the trust of a thirty-year personal relationship with each client. Fernando ran it with a smartphone, an administrator who did everything, and the feeling that the competition was gaining ground on him.
"What do you want it for?"
"For the clients."
"For what exactly?"
Fernando looked at the screenshots. He pointed to one.
"Look. Sánchez Logística's clients can see the status of their shipments in the app. In real-time. They get a map with the truck."
"And do your clients ask for that?"
Fernando remained silent for a moment. Not long. Just enough for the silence to say what he didn't want to say.
"Not exactly. But Sánchez has an app and we don't."
What the clients were really asking for
Fernando agreed to an exercise. Nothing sophisticated. Reviewing the last fifty emails and the last thirty calls from his clients. Not to analyze trends or do a market study. To see what they were asking.
The results were boring. Which is how useful results usually are.
Forty percent of the contacts were for the same thing: "Where is my shipment?" "What time does it arrive?" "Has it left yet?" Questions that the administrator, Merche, answered one by one, opening the routing program, looking for the license plate, checking the estimated time, and answering by phone or email. Three minutes per query. Fifteen or twenty queries a day. An hour a day. Five hours a week. Two hundred and sixty hours a year of Merche acting as an intermediary between a client and a screen.
Twenty percent was to ask for delivery notes or invoices. Merche again. Search, generate PDF, send.
Fifteen percent was to report an incident. Which didn't need an app either. It needed a place to report it that wasn't Merche's phone.
And the remaining twenty-five percent were things that did require a person. Price negotiations, route changes, real problems. The work that Merche should be doing and wasn't doing because she was answering "it leaves at ten, arrives at three."
An app, a link, or an email
Fernando didn't need an app. Not in the sense of a downloadable application with an icon on the mobile screen, custom design, push notifications, and monthly maintenance. What he needed was for his clients to be able to check the status of a shipment without calling Merche.
That can be an app. It can also be a simple webpage where the client enters a tracking number. It can also be an automatic link sent by email when the truck leaves. It can also be a WhatsApp message with the estimated time of arrival.
The solution is not the format. It is solving the need. And the need wasn't "to have an app." It was "for my clients to know where their shipment is without saturating my team."
Fernando thought about it.
"But Sánchez has an app."
"Do you know how many of Sánchez's clients use it?"
Fernando didn't know. Nobody usually knows. Because that question is almost never asked.
What happened next
Something simple was built. A tracking portal accessible from the browser, no download required. When a truck leaves, the system sends a link to the client by email or WhatsApp. The client clicks, sees where their shipment is, the estimated time of arrival, and can download the delivery note.
It didn't have Sánchez Logística's pretty map. It didn't have an icon on the mobile screen. It didn't have push notifications. It had what the clients needed.
Merche stopped receiving fifteen calls a day about the status of shipments. The first few weeks she answered a few from clients who didn't trust the link. After that, almost none. A client from Cartagena called to say they found the system very convenient. Merche told Fernando.
"Did he say he misses having an app?"
Merche looked at him as if she didn't understand the question.
Fernando searched Google for Sánchez Logística's app. It had eleven downloads and two reviews. One of them was from Sánchez himself.
He closed the browser. He didn't say anything. But in the afternoon he asked Merche what she was doing now with the free hour she had every day. Merche said she was calling clients who hadn't placed orders in a while.
"And how's that going?"
"Two have come back."
Fernando nodded. It wasn't an app. But it worked.
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