Last mile delivery and the accessibility of services reaching your doorstep has been the story of the decade. It is magical to see how the trend has laid its foundation, sustainably grew in its self and finally propagated before it has captured everyone’s eye. It has opened up numerous business opportunities in different fields. The greatest beneficiaries of the growing trend in the Indian start-up ecosystem have been the food delivery companies. Food delivery business never looked so lucrative and promising till it had got a golden angle of last mile delivery. There is a primitive USP of doorstep delivery convenience and the ability of start-ups to aggressively burn cash to retain customers. It has worked in tandem for last mile delivery to come in trend and also open up gateways of business opportunities for mobile app development companies and core digital transformation.
Why is it critical to manage delivery boys for last mile delivery businesses?
QoS=Brand reputation
Food delivery business finds last mile delivery as an integral part of the overall customer experience. It is important to realize for all food delivery companies that customers knowingly or annoyingly consider delivery boys like your company representatives and their actions as well as behavior. It ultimately constitutes the impression created on the customers’ mind. If delivery boys are ill-mannered non-cooperative and misbehave with customers, the millennial generation is least likely to entertain them in the future ever again. Moreover, they create a strong impression and stereotypical opinion about the brand.
Gradually growing customer bounce off
The food delivery business which continuously imparts a flawed customer experience is sure to face the problem of customer bounce off. It is like an incurable disease for any young start-up in the food delivery business. Sustainable business finds its secret in subtle ways of humble customers who helped them gradually increase business sales with expanding a business. And it is ascertained that food delivery business which does not have good on-field human resources as delivery boys will not have any loyal customers. Customer who once ordered food with them will have the slightest of possibilities of trying something new or repeating orders.
Loss of business
Word of mouth and examples created among customers are great ways of publicity. If the food delivery business gets judged or stereotyped on the quality of service, they will never turn up again. They might intentionally or unintentionally indulge in badmouthing about your company with people who are your probable customers but haven’t tried the services yet. It leads to an exponential loss in business which looks like a domino effect if one is initiated with a bad customer experience for one of the customers.
What are the benefits of focusing on improving food delivery boys and their overall delivery process?
Lesser offers required
If a brand can make customers fall in love with their customer experience, quality of delivery and the quality value of food delivered, customers will eventually tend to have a ritual of ordering through the same app. Even if there are minor discounts as compared to their contemporaries. Trusting a brand might be subconscious action for consumers, but it can significantly benefit businesses for sustainable sales. It is possible to turn a scene into your favor to the extent that despite having offers on competing for food delivery apps, your loyal customers will order a maximum of one so twice from the other vendor and eventually come back to you and express loyalty.
Flexibility in publicity approach
It is the privilege a food delivery brand enjoys if they have a loyal base of customers. People who are loyal to the brand are the easiest targets for your next marketing campaign. It includes creative ways of publicity that come with a question mark on the potential. It will give you a motivation to streamline your marketing activities, mend strategies after rolling out campaigns and properly segment your customer base while conveniently counting on your existing loyal customers. Loyal customers are attracted towards sophisticated, polite and well-mannered delivery boys who in turn prove to be an asset for every growing food delivery business.
Opportunities for innovation in sales & CX
Have you ever contemplated why larger brands backed by the reputation of big companies are successful at captivating customers with their CX?
It is mainly because they have the cushion to take risks and consistently innovate their overall customer experience as per:
- Festivals
- Calendar occasions
- New societal development which brings out a percentage of publicity and customer engagement like IPL or Navratri hours or General elections.
A tiny fraction of the business mind and managers can gauge the secret of their eminent competitors’ success. But it is a secret mantra that gives the privilege of innovating and bringing out the better of CX in all conditions.
Here are the core points to ponder for food delivery companies while managing their delivery boys
Quality of on-field human resources
The essence of this blog post underlines the importance of high-quality on-field human resources as delivery boys who have
- A good personality
- Brand representative mindset
- Accountability
- Sophistication
- Customer assistance ability
While inducting delivery boys for your food delivery business, the quality mentioned above should be embedded in their personality along with certain basic pleasantries and enrichment that ensure high-quality customer experience for all your customers. To start operations quickly and get the business in full swing, often food delivery businesses overlook the need of providing proper training of the digital systems, smartphones and adequate orientation for implanting basic pleasantries in the delivery boys. It is an extremely crucial step and should not be ignored under any circumstances.
Clarity of responsibility with all primary stakeholders
The process of food deliveries of deteriorating in quality witnessed timelines because the restaurant managers, cooks, food delivery business and the individual delivery boys are not sure of what is supposed to be done by whom. For instance, a restaurant might think that the primary brand packaging is the food del
ivery businesses responsibility but the conditions of a tie-up with the restaurant state that it is to be done by the restaurant. Unfortunately, the customer is delivered with low quality packed her spoiled food by the delivery boy because he thinks that it is beyond his scope of duty and responsibilities. Such instances should be eliminated from all delivery processes to build a sustainable business out of your food delivery app.
A comprehensive delivery management software
A reliable, scalable and food delivery management software with electronic proof of delivery is the greatest necessity for all food delivery businesses. It is like the backbone of a digital system which will ensure proper utilization of your on-field resources, seamless order generation and completion process along with location-based services in your delivery management software. Delivery management software not only streamline is your day to day delivery process but also allows you to track each and our every order with the amount of time taken the status of delivery and every phase of logistics; screen by screen. Nowadays, leading mobile app development companies are indulging in location-enabled delivery management software that they help you keep your real-time track of all your delivery boys, the status of deliveries and all the necessary information about the number of orders and hours of duty, etc.
Whether you should build it in- house or avail a third party service?
It is widespread debate in the tech business industry, and you will surely find an answer here. It is undebatable that offshore IT development services help young start-ups and even corporate save large chunks of money and eliminate a lot of hassle of development, DevOps, development, and deployment. If you have the capacity to investing a higher time material cost for building your food delivery app, you can go for in-house development. It will have its perks of developing the app at your pace with no possibilities of compromise on quality. Whereas, if you want quick robust and affordable services for a faster a time-to-market, you can avail services of any leading mobile app development company.
Characteristics of an ideal delivery management software
- Real-time location tracking
- Tronic proof of delivery
- Analytics-based order documentation and management
- Optimized route procurement
- High resilience
- easy data recovery
- Real-time status of orders
- Highly informative dashboards for all stakeholders
An appropriate compensation model for delivery boys
In today’s world, and the only way of building and expanding and sustainable pool of good quality on-field resources is to pay as per industry standards and offer extra perks. There is no substitute for deserving the remuneration for Delivery boys. It is essential to make sure that the delivery boys never feel exploited or underpaid because they are the real face of your brand. You should go for a micropayment level compensation model with fixed rates per kilometer or delivery. To grow extensively, food delivery businesses should have a mindset of retaining delivery boys and implanting organic pleasantries of the brand for a flawless customer experience leading to the aimed CX. It will help in building a sizeable loyal base of delivery boys with the experienced ones leading the pack and exhibiting teamwork for teaching the fresher. And helping them acquire the much-required knowledge about the brand.
Importance of branding and discipline for delivery boys
It is neither easy nor an overnight process to help your delivery boys get branded, but disciplined logistics and sincerity at operations can help them excel at jobs and promote your brand in leaps and bounds. Delivery boys who are paid on merit are most likely to stay with your brand and help you build a potential way of imparting a greater CX.
Conclusion and beyond
Delivery boys are the brand representatives or the real faces of your brand while attending customers. All delivery businesses should allocate a budget on inducing, orienting and improving the pleasantries skills of delivery boys as a part of the overall marketing budget. However, it is an absolute long-term approach which will let you reap benefits only after a threshold, maturity period while your delivery boys learned to work and deliver accurately. To focus on your requirements of quick cash than more substantial magical sales in it is an absolute long-term approach which will let you reap benefits only after a threshold, maturity period while your delivery boys learned to work and deliver accurately. For the short term, you can look to support your business with numerous aspects like a good CX, flawless deliveries, branding techniques, referrals, offers and a lot more.
Long-term approaches are always appreciated in the industry, but nobody can deny the fact that young start-ups require a sustainable system of sales to existing even before the breakeven of investments. The long-term plan should have a place on your business strategy sheet but do not outrightly overlook monthly have a yearly or annual requirement of revenue and sales; one at a time. Food delivery business has surfaced like a boon for the Indian start-ups and people looking for multi-skilled jobs. Now it will be exciting to witness the next paradigm shift of attraction under the likes of new technologies and the growing trend of personalized services.
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