Once your orders are cooked, packed and out of the door you might think that's the end of your customer service. But the final and most important link to your customer is yet to come – your delivery driver.
While you take care that customers who come into your takeaway will be impressed by your friendly and helpful staff, your pleasant decor, your cleanliness and efficiency, all with the aim of persuading them to come back again and again. But customers who order online for delivery have only one way to judge your business – your driver.
So it's extremely important that drivers know that they are representatives of your business and have responsibility, as much as all of your customer facing staff, to make sure customers are satisfied. Leaving a positive and lasting impression could be the difference between more repeat orders or not.
When drivers act like they’re nothing more than the messenger between your company and your customer, they’re doing damage to your company image, to your customers, and to themselves.
So what makes a good delivery driver?
Obviously they should act the same as your other customer facing staff – look professional, be smiling and courteous, helpful and considerate, and happy to serve, and should also follow the current government Covid rules as far as possible with mask wearing and social distancing.
But those less responsible have caused problems such as:
- Packing is squashed or shaken about
- Leaking food not kept upright in the car
- Ignoring delivery notes on orders
- Missing items, especially cold items
- Talking to someone else on the phone during delivery
- Loud music playing in the car
- Knocking on the wrong door, especially late at night
- Driving too fast on the customer's road
- Blocking someone else's driveway
- Cold food when delivered
- Delaying giving change for cash and hoping to keep it as a tip
- Parking in the customers driveway and leaving an oil leak
And if you get complaints from customers that an item is missing from their order, it could be because an American study showed that 28% of food delivery drivers have admitted to sample a customer's food before delivery at least once, so there may be a missing kebab or burger from a meal deal, a missing slice of pizza, less chips than were expected, or a missing pakora or samosa.
Even if you don't get complaints about deliveries doesn't mean that it's not happening. A recent video seen on TikTok showed how a slice of pizza can be removed and the rest rearranged so it looks whole again.
Luckily that couldn't happen to a kebab – or could it?
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