Food delivery services are forever in competition with each other to be faster, better and have more restaurants on their catalogue. The bid for speed was initially started by a pizza chain with their 30 minutes or free campaign, but often what is neglected in the process of outrunning competitors is quality and a patient listen.
Recently, Zomato’s fast response to a customer’s complaint became a subject of high ridicule and highlighted how the service-chain industry needs adequately trained, people-friendly and most importantly, responsive people at its customer care centres. A woman customer recently tried to complain about a dead housefly in her biryani topping which the customer executive at the other end mistook as a request for more topping and assured that more of the same (in this case that would automatically imply houseflies) would be repeated for her. It took largescale shaming on social media for Zomato to figure out the issue and then apologise to the customer. Swiggy, too, has been known for defaulting on timely deliveries and informing the customer of non-availability of items mid-way through the processing of a particular order. Complaints of misplaced orders, “no change” options and stale food have been routinely piling up on message boards across social media. While we aggressively launch delivery service start-ups, we must remember that we should first perfect the drill of accuracy, speed, quality and most importantly internalise the spirit that the customer is always the king.
