Food delivery has never been as easy to offer to your customers since the introduction of food delivery apps and software such as WOWAPPS, Uber Eats and Menulog.

Not all delivery partners excel with the same delightful experience for your customers; choosing the right delivery partner for your business and taking the initiative to provide a positive memorable delivery experience is vital towards gaining loyal repeat customers and maximising delivery orders.

Here are a few tips and techniques you can use to ensure your delivery flow is efficient and your customers' food delivery experience is memorable:

1 - Maintaining a Good Quality of Food

The most important experience for your customer is to maintain good quality of food throughout the delivery process. You have to provide the ordering customer with the same level of food in terms of quality, taste and visual presentation as you would for someone who is eating at your restaurant.

Ensure your food gets to the customer in the same condition it left the store; in order to do so, the deliverer must be instructed to maintain the food parcel with utmost care. Be sure to take feedback from customers and work to improve on that information.

2 - Set Your Delivery Areas with Care

Tasty food on time is what the customer wants - delivering food on time is another most important aspect of the customers’ experience. Set your delivery area based on a realistic distance that your delivery person can cover using a chosen delivery method, without your food getting cold, or losing quality by the time it arrives.

Ensure the wait time you offer to the customer is realistic and accurate. The time window to deliver the food without compromising quality will greatly determine the optimal fleet solution for your business.

If orders can be stacked and batched for delivery, drivers will able to accommodate more orders in a single run and fewer drivers will be needed.

3 - Create a Standardised Delivery Procedure  

Outsourcing restaurant delivery partners does not mean you have to compromise on your service efficiency - specific delivery responsibilities should be assigned to the kitchen staff and delivery drivers.

Outsourced delivery drivers should be well versed in their coverage area and make sure your in-house kitchen staff knows who is in charge of bagging the orders, so they can be kept ready to go. This will leave more time for drivers to match content correctly and avoid any mistakes.

4 - Optimise Your Menu for Delivery 

Not every item on your day-to-day menu can work for food delivery as some things just don’t travel well. Think the menu through and take out any items that will provide a bad customer experience through delivery.

It may be a hard decision to make but this will increase your chance of gaining loyal customers in your area. 

To give an example, many Japanese venues choose not to deliver ramen; they just do not believe it will do justice to their restaurant, since the dish does not travel well. This decision means these venues avoid giving their customers a bad experience.

5 - Offer Customisation and Personalised Food

Don’t take it to heart, not every customer will enjoy the dish you prepare exactly the way you decide to make it. Pizza is a particularly good example for customisation - some people want to remove various toppings from what is on offer, or add extra toppings.

By offering the option to add a note, or customise an item on the menu, you will see that personal preference customers will start/continue to order from you through delivery. Again, make sure the customised item is clearly displayed on the packaging, so your customers know whose order is what.

Try Experimental Marketing and Promote Your Business

There are several unique ways you can market your business when sending out food for delivery. It is essential for your business to utilise various marketing techniques in order to grow and maximise future delivery orders.

Packaging

Invest in a packaging and design that is original, memorable and shows off your food visually when it arrives. Make sure it is easy for the customer to figure out what is what when receiving the package and make their experience memorable and a pleasure when opening their order. 

QR Code

To grow customer loyalty, you can use QR code marketing, which is becoming ever so popular; add some QR codes to your orders through direct print, or stickers on the packaging. The QR codes can link directly to various marketing essentials, such as your own downloadable app which they can order from in the future. 

Promotional Material

You can also include some discount vouchers, or menus into the delivery bag so customers can keep a physical menu they can use to order from in the future. Restaurants and takeaways that are including promotional material through their delivery have seen a 79% rise in repeat customer numbers.

When it comes to providing a great food delivery experience for your customers, you can neither compromise on the time taken for delivery, nor the efficiency of the preparation.

People ordering food are eager to dig in as early as possible and delayed delivery can make them sceptical about ordering from your restaurant the next time. Inaccurate orders can completely ruin the customer experience. 

With the use of increased technology such as the WOWAPPS platform and changing demographics, the future of restaurant delivery is now brighter than ever.

This is why you need to ensure you provide top-notch customer service, even when you are getting your food delivered to your customers. Don’t forget that while you are providing an excellent customer experience, you can also take the opportunity to promote your business and provide a long-lasting relationship with your customers.