Consumer demand for delivery is growing, and as a result, many restaurants are adding online ordering and delivery service. Because delivery creates extra staffing, scheduling, and technology needs, however, many restaurant leaders have become overwhelmed by the prospect.
To combat the added operational complexity, some have chosen to partner with third-party delivery services, such as GrubHub or PostMates. These services help reduce the increased workload of individual restaurants when delivery is added, but they often cost restaurants significant chunks of their profits and take their customers off brand-owned platforms. When consumers leave restaurants’ websites and apps, brands no longer control the experience, and this can cause service snags that hurt business.
“There are a number of critical problems that we are seeing when restaurants use third-party delivery services,” says Bane Hunter, CEO of GetSwift, a company that produces cloud software to dispatch, track, and manage deliveries and drivers. “The first is brand identity—does the customer see your brand or the delivery team’s brand, and which becomes more valuable over time? The second is customer data—who has it, how is it used, and how will you as a restaurant leader use it on time and in the right way? The third aspect is quality and control—do you really have control over the workforce being used, are deliveries being made quickly, safely, and with great customer service? If not, how can you manage that today not tomorrow?”
This lack of control creates significant risks for restaurants. Guests don’t differentiate between the brand experience in-store or the experience online, even if that experience is through a third-party platform. One bad website or delivery experience is all it takes to lose customers for life. If brands can’t control their customer experience or the data being collected, how can they improve guest retention?
The answer is bringing delivery back inside the restaurant, but that doesn’t necessarily have to mean bringing the operational headaches back with it. That’s why Hunter and the GetSwift team have dedicated their time to building software that takes the pain out of delivery management. With route planning, order management, customer alerts, and more, GetSwift puts power back into the hands of the restaurants.
“We give control, visibility, and value back to whom it belongs, namely our clients and their customers,” Hunter says. “This allows restaurants and consumers to deepen their relationships, and both benefit—not some third party.”
Though it already offers convenient delivery management tools, GetSwift now offers exciting new services. The company recently announced the acquisition of Delivery BIZ Pro, a delivery management platform that facilitates delivery between fresh produce providers and homes and businesses, and Scheduling+, a popular workforce scheduling provider. These new services will allow GetSwift to give restaurant leaders an even wider range of support all in one comprehensive platform.
“It’s not just about delivery anymore. Operators need to offer a complete solution from as far down the supply chain as the origination of goods all the way up to workforce management and consumer and client satisfaction,” Hunter says. “Delivery BIZ Pro and Scheduling+ allows us to move quickly in this direction. It is the execution of a part of a strategy we modeled out more than a year ago.”
With these acquisitions, GetSwift will greatly expand its capabilities. By offering a diverse suite of solutions to the most pressing restaurant issues today, the software can help restaurants drive efficiency and profits.
“At GetSwift we are absolutely thrilled to be able to offer restaurant leaders a comprehensive single platform that will offer task and delivery management, route optimization, batch and dispatch services, workforce management, data analytics and reporting, and other features—which normally restaurant leaders would have to shop around and integrate from multiple different vendors. Most importantly, we give them freedom and a choice as to how they will run their businesses.”
