In a bid to improve delivery service and incentivize delivery executives, Zomato has added new features to its app that include a short bio of the delivery executive and an option to add a tip for the person.
It has also increased its fleet strength from 2,200 in February 2018 to 40,000 people in June 2018.
The tip feature allows users to add a small tip between Rs 5 to Rs 50 to the order, which is directly transferred to the delivery executive without any deductions by Zomato. This feature appears during the final stage of placing an order on the same page as customer information, order cart, and some other features like the GoGreen filter (allowing you to skip the plastic cutlery), and the option to expedite an order for an unwell customer.
The short bios of the delivery executive comprise information like their education, hometowns, languages they speak, and a line about their life, families and aspirations. The bio appears after a delivery executive is assigned for an order and is on the same page with information such as the order status, summary and the delivery executive’s contact details and rating.
"We want to give our app a human touch. There is a story behind every delivery executive that comes to deliver food to us - they aren’t just a dot on a map that you can track. This is our endeavour to bring the larger community closer to each other, and also enable our customers to help these delivery executives realise their dreams for themselves and their families,” Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO – Zomato said in a statement.
Zomato further stated that its delivery executives hail from varied backgrounds in the 17 cities in India where online ordering services are available. All executives have their own bikes. While some of them are students who are keen on completing their graduation, others have been in the delivery vertical for years now. Some deliver food orders full-time, while some others do this on a part-time basis.
“These short bios work as the medium of conversation and remind our users that a person, just like them, is going to deliver their food. The tip feature is one a lot of our users had been requesting and tipping is another way to thank delivery executives for going the extra mile and providing a great experience. Both these features are an initiative aimed to support, empower, and appreciate our delivery heroes and the initial response to both has been fantastic,” added, Mohit Kumar, Head of Food Delivery at Zomato. He was the founder of Runnr, which was acquired by Zomato last September to build its last mile delivery capabilities.
Zomato launched its online ordering and food delivery services in May 2015 and currently claims to deliver over 10.5 million orders a month. The food delivery service is currently available across 17 cities in India, i.e. Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Kochi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Indore, Coimbatore, Vadodara, Nagpur, Lucknow and Ludhiana.