Starting a food delivery business is never easy. You have to manage so many aspects of your business all at once. And if you start your food-delivery business without a food delivery solution, then you’re headed towards endless problems. In this article, we will discuss various challenges that you will face while starting your own food-delivery business. We will also see as to how you can overcome those challenges. But first let’s look at us the challenges.
Challenges in starting a food-delivery business
To keep up with the customer expectations
In today’s time where you can access several services by just tapping on your phone, the customers have high expectations when it comes to the food delivery. As an owner of a restaurant enterprise, sometimes it can become difficult to keep up with those expectations, especially if you lack a food delivery solution.
First thing that customers want is simplicity and convenience. They want the process of searching, ordering, and payment to be as simple as possible.
Without the presence of a robust food delivery system you will face hard time keeping your customers happy who are habituated with lightning fast food deliveries at their fingertips.
High possibility of missing deliveries
There are many perils of managing a food delivery business manually and missing deliveries is perhaps the biggest of them all. When running a food delivery business, you have to manage several orders at once. With absence of a food delivery solution, it often becomes difficult to manage all of them manually. This gives rise to the human error that can eventually result in missed deliveries.
Missed deliveries are a thing which haunts every business due to its adverse effects. A missed food delivery means loss of time and resource. Not only that, it might also lead to losing customers due to poor customer service.
Inefficient order management
As compared to all the other on-demand business services, food delivery is a business that receives a massive volume of orders. That’s the reason why it becomes important to offer top-notch services starting from food ordering to food delivery.
In case, if you don’t have an efficient food delivery system, then managing a bulk of order manually without a single error is humanly impossible. Moreover, when you manage a bulk order manually then it increases the delivery time along with compromise on food packing and quality,
That’s why it’s needless to say that to start a food-delivery business you must have a food-delivery system.
Tracking drivers and orders
Tracking is a crucial part of the food delivery business. You would require to track the food package carried by drivers to ensure timely delivery. Tracking is significant as it gives you a crystal clear idea of the time required for the delivery of food. This also helps in keeping your customers calm as they can view the estimated time of arrival of their food package.
Real-time tracking with the help of GPS is also beneficial for the delivery boys as they can reach the destinations with clear route suggestions.
Last mile delivery solution for food delivery
The last mile delivery system is a comprehensive solution that can solve all your food-delivery challenges in one go. Before discussing that we must know that a last mile delivery solution for food delivery is divided into three parts
- Admin panel
- Driver app
Let’s talk about the admin panel first.
Get a bird’s eye view with admin panel
The admin panel of a last mile delivery solution streamlines all your food-delivery operations which saves your time, resources, and helps you to get a bird’s eye view of your food-delivery business. The admin panel comes with various components which are:
Interactive dashboard
The admin panel consists of an interactive and intuitive dashboard that will give comprehensive information about all the functionalities of the system under one screen. From this dashboard, the admin can view all the
- Total number of orders
- Total number of available delivery boys
- Total delayed orders
- Delay average time.
The dashboard also shows which orders are running on time and which ones are delayed in a graphical manner.
Auto-allocation of orders
With a food delivery solution in place, you can auto-allocate resources for various orders. No need to manually allocate tasks to your delivery boys. This automation brought in task allocation by the last mile delivery solution saves a great deal of time, money, and energy.
The last mile delivery solution also has a special algorithm that takes various factors under consideration to select the most suitable delivery boy.
Route optimization
Delivering food on time is the first priority for any food delivery business. And to achieve that you must have a system in place that suggests your delivery boys with the most optimal routes. The last mile delivery solution for food delivery comes with route optimization feature that does exactly the same.
Apart from suggesting the most suitable and efficient route, the solution also helps you to manage multiple deliveries with the least number of resources. The integrated route optimization engine of the solution considers various parameters like capacity, location, time, and traffic to give out the most efficient routes available.
A companion app for delivery boys
The driver app of the last mile delivery solution for food delivery makes a driver’s job easy due to its intuitive and interactive user interface. The driver can perform various key functions using this application such as:
Proof of delivery
The driver app of the last mile delivery app simplifies the process of proof of delivery for all the delivery boys of a food delivery enterprise. The driver app consists of a in-app collection of barcodes, photos, signatures, and notes.
Monitor performance
The driver app for the food delivery solution comes with a comprehensive driver performance metrics along with detailed task history. These help drivers to analyse their performance and enhance their productivity.
Customer interaction
Communication between the customer and the delivery boy is crucial as it considerably reduces the delivery failure ratio. With the help of driver application, the delivery boys can connect to the customers via chat, SMS, or call.
Keep your customers updated and satisfied
The last mile delivery application usually don’t have customer’s app. However, its features can still satisfy all your customer’s needs. Let’s see how.
Real-time tracking
With the last mile delivery solution, you can provide your customers with a link via SMS. This link redirects the users to an easy-to-access web tracking that helps your customers to track their food delivery order in real-time.
Seamless customer communication
An efficient food delivery solution also provides seamless customer communication as it allows them to contact their delivery person, call centre, dispatcher via call or message with just a tap on their smartphone.
Auto-status update
With the last mile delivery solution in place, you can offer rich customer experience with auto-status updates. These updates let your customers know when the delivery will start and when it’s expected reach their doorsteps.
Top benefits of using a last mile delivery solution
Rich customer Experience
Customer is the king and at the end of the day it’s all about delivering a rich customer experience. With an efficient last mile delivery solution for food delivery business, you can gratify your customers with streamlined and timely deliveries of food packages. Such top-notch services help in creating a good image of your food delivery service among the users.
Read More: Fixlastmile’s feature-rich last mile delivery solution.
Optimization techniques
Inefficient routes along with poor time management are the root causes of increased fuel costs and other avoidable expenditures. Route optimization feature of the solution comes with an advanced algorithm which makes sure that your driver completes maximum deliveries in the least amount of time and fuel consumption. This algorithm considers various factors like location proximity, driver availability, traffic conditions, delivery window, weight capacity, etc.
Convenient payment
With a last mile delivery solution, you can provide an easy and convenient mode of payments. This payment methods could be cash, card, and wallet payment. Offering multiple mode of payments ensure higher customer satisfaction. Moreover, cashless payments offer higher convenience, speed, and security.
Seamless communication
With a last mile delivery solution in place, you can establish seamless communication with your customers. You can send timely notifications for each stage of the food delivery. Notifications for food preparation, dispatch, in transit, and delivery help the customers to know about their order. Moreover, it also helps the customers to be present at the place of delivery at the required time.
Conclusion
After reading this article, one thing is for sure that to run a food-delivery business successfully, you mandatorily require a food delivery solution. In this article we looked at the different components of a food-delivery system along with its features. Then we also saw what benefits you can gain by incorporating a food delivery solution in your business. I hope you liked this article. For more such insightful content keep reading this space.
