Article
Is time up for 3rd party delivery's customer experience problems?
Customers often complain about failed or unsatisfactory deliveries from third party deliveries. And the sad fact is that though your brand had little involvement in that customer experience, your brand is what will ultimately get the blame instead of that third-party provider app that actually executed the inadequate service.
July 22, 2019 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group
If your brand delivers, you know this situation: A rattled customer calls your local store, thinking that's where they placed their delivery order even though they went through a third-party provider. He is not happy. His order is stone cold and took twice as long as promised to get to his door. When it arrived, it had also spilled it contents and all the delivery driver could say was, "Hey man, at least it got here. Your house is impossible to find!"
The customer — still hungry and more than a little irritated — has just this to say, "I'll never order from your place again!"
In the realm of customer experience, this would be a major fail. And the sad fact is that though your brand had little involvement in that customer experience, your brand is what will ultimately get the blame instead of that third-party provider app that actually executed the inadequate service.
In fact, the noise from restaurant leaders about this one issue has pervaded just about every industry gathering or show this year. After all, delivery and off-premise dining may be the single biggest agent of change in the industry at the moment. Or, as Technomic Executive Vice President of Development Patrick Noone told an audience at May's National Restaurant Association Show, "Off-premise is affecting everything."
The numbers back that up too, with the most recent data from Coca-Cola's research arm, DINE360, showing that what it calls "restaurant delivery intermediaries" (for example, Grubhub, UberEats, DoorDash), have experienced phenomenal growth in business over the last year alone, with the number of visits to such delivery provider apps and sites growing from one in five last March to one in four this March. Put plainly, third-party providers are here to stay.
But in the view of D.C.-based &pizza President and COO Andy Hooper the situation as it stands with third-party provider customer experience quality issues is untenable if for no other reason than the sheer volume of players in the field.
"The current landscape for third-party delivery partnerships is still fairly crowded and unsustainable," Hooper said in an interview with Pizza Marketplace. "There's clearly a shakeout coming, because a world where restaurants, couriers and providers are all losing is one that isn't sustainable."
At one company that provides ordering solutions and mobile apps, Revention, Demand Generation Director Sharon Svensson is well aware of the issues brands are experiencing with third-party delivery provider customer service, but she said brands have options.
"When the third-party provides poor service, screws up an order, or experiences technology glitches, it can reflect negatively on (restaurant brands) and tarnish their reputation, even though it's outside of their control," she acknowledged.
What to do instead? Svensson made several suggestions revolving around having brands move away from total reliance on third-party providers for all of their off-premise ordering and delivery experience. She urged brands to take more control of the ordering process itself through development of their own platforms.
"With an online and mobile app ordering system (that's) integrated with the (restaurant's) point of sale system, they will take customers to their nicely branded experience where their customers won't pay the extra delivery service fees charged by the other guys," she explained. "With less hassle and fees, their customers are more likely to place an online order from their website than a third-party service."
Still she acknowledged that the popularity of third-party provider apps with customers gives brands a competitive edge, particularly against larger competitors, but she said all that can be for naught if a brand's reputation is trashed by poor delivery quality.
"So how do you solve this? Consider implementing a hybrid solution used only during peak times or for deliveries that are out of their standard service area," she suggested.
"The current landscape for third-party delivery partnerships is still fairly crowded and unsustainable. There's clearly a shakeout coming, because a world where restaurants, couriers and providers are all losing is one that isn't sustainable."
-&pizza President Andy Hooper
Those options are likely among the many that the longtime delivery-centered brands, Marco's Pizza, discusses regularly in meetings with its third-party providers. In fact, Marco's President and COO Tony Libardi told Pizza Marketplace customer service is a major objective of the brand's ongoing discussions with its providers.
"We understand that some consumers prefer the convenience of the one-stop shopping experience third-party delivery offers and we are working with these services to ensure our great product is delivered with the excellence that our customers expect from us," he said. "We meet with these top third-party delivery services (for example, UberEats) on a monthly basis to ensure that our product quality and customer experience is consistent when a consumer chooses to order through these third-party services."
But ultimately, Hooper points out that at &pizza they realize that regardless of which individual or even individual third-party provider is delivering the brand's pies, &pizza ultimately "owns" that experience. That's why his brand has made some leadership moves to get a better grip on the issue.
"We've recently made some key additions to our leadership team, including a strategic leader devoted exclusively to optimizing the experience of enjoying &pizza off-premise," Hooper explained. "We believe that delivery needs to be treated as a primary occasion and not an afterthought; it deserves a level of focus to ensure the experience for a guest is equal to an in-shop experience."
Unfortunately, Hooper said that may not always be the case for his brand or any other using third-party providers now since he called third-party providers' services "highly variable," at the moment. And that may be why, at least Hooper, feels that aforementioned "shakeout" is due for the third-party delivery space and he thinks restaurateurs need to guide the direction that takes.
"I think restaurateurs need to understand that off-premise and delivery occasions are here to stay, and it's up to us to find the best solution for ensuring the guest's experience is excellent and the economics work for all parties," he said.
Photo: iStock
About S.A. Whitehead
Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.
