The last couple of years saw the traditional restaurant model of indoor dining become almost obsolete. Food delivery increased in the United States by 13% in 2020 and 14% in 2021. This year it’s predicted to continue increasing to 16%; by the middle of the decade, food delivery is set to increase by 24% compared to the pre-covid prediction of just 15%.
How are you adapting to the altered food delivery landscape?
If you’ve outsourced your delivery operation to a third party, it’s now time to reconsider what exactly is the most worthwhile and cost-efficient solution.
Spoiler: it’s a hybrid delivery solution of in-house control and third-party flexibility.
In this post, we’re going to explain why a hybrid delivery solution is the best setup by looking at three key areas that will influence your food delivery efficiency and profitability:
- The customer journey
- Your delivery operations
- How to make everything more efficient and most importantly, more profitable
1. The Customer Journey
Most restaurants rely on third-party marketplaces to fulfill their food delivery. Crucial touchpoints such as brand engagement opportunities, and the ability to control the customer experience are usually lost to the third-party platform.
A lot of restaurants are realizing (or hoping) that there’s a more profitable business model available. It’s not about saying goodbye to third-party marketplace apps entirely, but creating a smart, hybrid system that:
- Allows you to manage a portion (no pun intended) of your own deliveries as effectively as a third-party provider
- Take advantage of, rather than rely on, DSPs by using them to manage order overflow and reduce cancellations
- Capitalize on branding opportunities such as offering future discounts, coupons, etc that can massively improve customer experience and the potential for repeat business
- Collect and learn from your customer data rather than sacrificing it to marketplaces
In other words, you’re taking control of the customer journey. You are minimizing the variables that inevitably lead to a diminished service and customer experience.
2. Your Delivery Operations
It’s possible to run a sleek and efficient (and hassle-free) in-house food delivery service using your own team of drivers or small local delivery service providers. The surprising thing is that your customers want this. 44% of consumers prefer to place delivery orders directly through a restaurant’s website or app.
Giving your customers the opportunity to do this provides a positive customer experience and allows you to take full advantage of website traffic and customer data.
One example is the possibility to retarget website visitors based on their demographics and purchasing habits—a potentially effective channel that is almost entirely lost if data is siloed by a third-party provider.
How simple is an in-house system?
When your in-house delivery team reaches its capacity or you receive orders outside of your delivery radius, that’s when third-party delivery comes into its own. With an automated system you can outsource deliveries instead of rejecting them or quoting unacceptable wait times as well as redeploy your employees to focus on other aspects of the business.
Everything always remains under your brand and in your control.
You might be thinking “another software”—making the switch can be daunting, we understand that! But VROMO is a single software that allows you to manage your orders, fleet, and third-party operations. It’s designed to make everything you do easier and more efficient.
3. 9 Benefits of a Hybrid Delivery System
Here’s how pizza restaurant Papa Gino’s uses VROMO to capitalize on hybrid food delivery
To sum up, here are some of the benefits to your customer journey and your business when adopting a hybrid delivery system:
- Control and optimize every aspect of the customer journey
- Prioritize in-house delivery based on distance from your restaurant(s)
- Handle overflow and out-of-area orders
- Reduce or eliminate revenue/customer loss from rejected orders
- Own your customer data to make data-driven informed business decisions
- Prioritize and personalize your promotions
- Deliver messaging to customers based on location, time of day, and preferences
- Provide a real-time order status via a tracking link and showcase branded videos, images, coupons, discount codes, and more
- Meet the preferred ordering method of your customers
The reliance on third-party vendors over the last couple of years has helped our industry survive; now it’s time to look again at how a more balanced model can help us thrive.
Are you ready to transform your delivery operations?