The food delivery business in India has taken off in the last few years. Brands like Zomato and Swiggy have started to offer quick and easy methods for customers to enjoy delicious food from the comfort of their own homes.
Zomato’s impressive listing at their recent IPO affirms that food aggregators in India have come a long way. Oversubscribed 38 times, Zomato listed at a stellar 66 per cent above the issue price, leaving the markets cheering and the investors happy. In fact, experts opine that this is also an indication that India’s start-up ecosystem is thriving as a whole.
According to a report published in April 2021, online food delivery is one of the few industries in India registering double-digit CAGR—28.94% expected in the 2020-2026 period—and will be worth $21.41 billion by 2026.
As per another report by Google and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) published in January 2020, one-fifth of the respondents (~1500 people) expressed hesitation in trusting online food delivery apps and 10% said the lack of customisation was a barrier to ordering online.
A call centre staffed with seasoned customer service agents can change that for the better.
Online food delivery has two primary models—cloud kitchen and aggregator. Cloud kitchens are commercial facilities created specifically with the purpose of producing food for delivery. In the aggregator model, consumers are able to compare and order dishes from third-party restaurants, including cloud kitchens, through a single app.
Owing to the rising penetration of the Internet and the widespread use of smartphones, the food aggregator model has turned out to be quite profitable for businesses. The pandemic-induced lockdowns have only magnified the demand for online food deliveries.
Challenges for food aggregators
The online food delivery business has four essential stakeholders—aggregators, restaurants, customers and the delivery staff. Managing them can be quite a balancing act.
After a customer places an order, there is very little the aggregator can do to improve the customer experience. It’s really up to the restaurant and food delivery staff to fulfil the order satisfactorily and treat the customer courteously.
Remember, these apps are run by humans too. There’s a lot that can go wrong.
According to the “2018 takeout, delivery and catering study” by Off-Premise Insights, 82% of consumers blame the restaurant when things go wrong, not the food delivery service.
All in all, some customer service challenges faced by the food delivery industry today are:
- Providing quick and easy access to customer services, especially phone support
- Staffing issues due to unpredictable demand resulting in unhappy customers
- Lack of clarity about the order fulfilment process, resulting in confusion over delivery timelines
- Competitors offering better deals and lower fees
- Communicating delivery delays due to issues like vehicle breakdown to customers
- Maintaining up-to-date information on restaurant prices, operating hours, out of stock or seasonal items, specials, etc.
One might ask—in the era of automation, why do we need a call centre solution?
A lot of non-techies have hopped on these platforms. Therefore, these applications need to be as user-friendly as possible.
Sometimes all the customer wants is some reassurance. In case of an issue with the order, agents can connect consumers and restaurants in a three-way call to resolve the matter quickly. Live help supported by call centre software can also enhance the customer experience.
If you are a rapidly growing food aggregator business, a call centre solution may be the right thing for you. In a survey of 501 people, Clutch, a leading B2B research, ratings and reviews firm, found that 88% of people preferred to speak to a live customer service representative rather than navigate a phone menu.
How can call centre solutions help
Customers want quick resolutions. Thus, they prefer to contact an agent if they face a complex issue. Adding a cloud-based call centre solution to your operations will make for happier, more loyal customers. Here’s how:
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Ease of use:
Offering a toll-free number is one of the best ways to invite customers to reach out to you. All they have to do is dial a number instead of trawling through complex menus. A one-to-one conversation makes it easy to understand menu offerings as well as any specials that may be available.
A toll-free number encourages customers to call and order, since there is no additional cost burden for them. By deploying anonymous calling, the customer’s privacy is also maintained.
A call centre software also makes it easy to integrate the toll-free number with a hi-tech, intuitive Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. With an effective IVR system, the call may not even need to be attended by a live agent.
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Speedy resolution:
If an irate customer calls you because of a delayed delivery or an issue with the order, an agent can resolve the issue on the spot. This can be done by offering a discount voucher for the next order, or by waiving off delivery charges.
Such gestures need to be spontaneous and speedy, which is possible on a call. Through other channels, the resolution is often too slow, a case of too little, too late.
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Enhance brand image:
Adding a call centre kiosk reassures customers that their issues are being addressed by call centre agents who have the requisite know-how. For example, if the food is not up to the mark, the representative can get in touch with the kitchen staff to have the order replaced. This shows your customer that you, as a brand, care about their experience.
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The tech advantage:
Cutting-edge call centre software will put you well above your competition with tracking and monitoring capabilities. These provide important insights into the performance of food delivery operations and enable you to identify areas of improvement. Services like call recordings can also allow for better monitoring of agent performance.
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Cost-effective:
Cloud-based systems allow you to save on infrastructure, operational as well as maintenance costs, as compared to on-premise solutions. These systems also make it easy to scale your operations, allowing you to easily add new lines for new locations.
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Ease of integration:
With call centre solutions, an entire bouquet of customer service options is available in one place. Call centre kiosks allow CRM systems to be integrated, allowing agents access to useful customer data and interaction history on the same screen. This way they can serve them faster and more intuitively.
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The power of bulk SMSes:
Bulk SMSes are another handy tool to achieve marketing goals. Call centre solutions come equipped with the technology to trigger automated messages to customers from the database. These leave the agents free to focus on core tasks.
Call centre software also allows individual campaigns to be monitored and assessed. Bulk SMSes are extremely popular with food delivery platforms since they are cost-effective and provide a great ROI.
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Scalability:
Call centre solutions are scalable. Cloud-based call centre solutions allow you to scale your workforce up or down as required based on your insights. They also make it possible to add additional lines for a short period, based on a pay-as-you-use model.
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Host of services:
Call centre solutions don’t exist only to deal with customers. They can be used to onboard vendors as well as address their grievances. These include technical support and help desk, and restaurant account management—including analysing order trends and customer feedback.
Apart from this, they can provide, text, chat, email and social media customer support; sales and new client accounts onboarding; community and content moderation; as well as delivery staff support.
Consider call centre solutions today!
We live in an era of instant gratification and communication. So, it is only natural for the customer to expect instant access to customer service. As partnerships between restaurants and food delivery agents get stronger, smooth operations are the need of the hour.
Thus, in the age of automation, let us not forget the importance of the human touch. No automated chats can calm an ‘angry’ customer. A call centre solution, backed by the latest technologies, can be a game-changer for food aggregators.
Call Servetel at 1800-120-4132 today for our wide range of call centre solutions.
