Is delivery management important?

[PizzaSoft]

we use DeliveryIQ from Foodtec that does this extremely well…they are able to give you an approximate location (1/2 mile or so) that gives us a buffer when they are taking multiple orders. We never send multiple orders that are in the opposite direction so it never causes a probem for us. It has made my like ALOT easier when managing drivers and the feedback from customers being able to track their orders has been great. It has saved us from getting those annoying “Where is my pizza?” calls at the worst times. When we get those calls we make sure to let them know about the order tracker feature and that is one less person that will call going forward.

Hi famousperry, yes I’ve heard of the foodtec solution, and it sounds really good. They even thought of the customer notification part. And as I suspected, the customers really like it. That’s the most important part. That’s the way the chains are thinking. And I believe that you can see the drivers right inside your POS screen/software, so it seems to be totally integrated, which is great. I think full integration of online ordering and delivery management is ultimately the way everybody should go and eventually will go. But it doesn’t seem to be cheap. So how much would it cost someone who already has a decent POS that they are pretty happy with to switch to Foodtec in terms of cost and re-training?

 

[PizzaSoft]

Imagine having 8-10 drivers on the road. You are doing 60 order hours. Are you really going to coordinate putting those orders through the oven with the return time of the driver you plan on having take it?

Under normal circumstances, you schedule the appropriate number of drivers to make sure that food isn’t sitting around at the store for any period of time.

IMO, this is a flashy way to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist.

That’s true. If you are doing 60 orders per hour being delivered, then this idea is definitely not for you. At your volume, you should have a fully integrated system where online orders are automatically entered into your system and delivery management would be included. And it probably wouldn’t be a lot of money for you, relative to your sales. Drivers would just get new orders popping up on their list. Simple at that point, IF it’s all integrated with the POS (aka, the money or accounting). Even then, it looks like delivery management still wouldn’t be any real benefit to you.

So what about the customer notification part? Chains like Dominoes and Pizza Hut have a very customer centric mentality rather than an operations centric. They are always looking for that one extra little angle or benefit to the customer to set them apart (because IMHO their pizza stinks ). I haven’t heard much mention about the customer here, except for wanting to hide driver’s location from them. But the chains are definitely in the process as we speak of offering this, and so far, the customer response seems to be very encouraging for them.

 

[famousperry]

Imagine having 8-10 drivers on the road. You are doing 60 order hours. Are you really going to coordinate putting those orders through the oven with the return time of the driver you plan on having take it?

Under normal circumstances, you schedule the appropriate number of drivers to make sure that food isn’t sitting around at the store for any period of time.

IMO, this is a flashy way to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist.

this is 100% true…during peak hours we just make sure food is not sitting although the customer tracking feature does help during these peak periods where the waits are upwards of 1hour+…coordinating orders happens more during lunch and off-peak hours with 1-4 drivers

 

[PizzaSoft]

we use DeliveryIQ from Foodtec that does this extremely well…they are able to give you an approximate location (1/2 mile or so) that gives us a buffer when they are taking multiple orders. We never send multiple orders that are in the opposite direction so it never causes a probem for us. It has made my like ALOT easier when managing drivers and the feedback from customers being able to track their orders has been great. It has saved us from getting those annoying “Where is my pizza?” calls at the worst times. When we get those calls we make sure to let them know about the order tracker feature and that is one less person that will call going forward.

Doesn’t the customer get a text message if they are waiting for a delivery? I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t know that they can track their order. But I haven’t used Foodtec, and can only read about them, so I don’t know. Just curious.

Also, does the Foodtec app allow the owner to choose whether the drivers are visible to the customer or not? Or, does it have an option to allow the driver to decide on a case per case basis? If I was a driver coming from the wrong way, I would not want my exact location to be known. A general circle radius that indicates distance might be fine, as long as it doesn’t indicate direction. But there would be other times where I have one delivery and I am coming from the restaurant straight to the person’s house. Or maybe it’s the second delivery, but I am coming from the right direction. Then I would want to show my location, hopefully promoting customer experience and satisfaction, and hopefully a better tip. Customers might appreciate it more than people expect, and if the chains have their way, it’s going to be an “expectation” of the customer. Any why not? The technology has already been around and has even been accessible to regular people such as myself. Nothing really new.

 

[PizzaSoft]

this is 100% true…during peak hours we just make sure food is not sitting although the customer tracking feature does help during these peak periods where the waits are upwards of 1hour+…coordinating orders happens more during lunch and off-peak hours with 1-4 drivers

How many drivers do you have in your best location (or your one location) at your busiest time? Some of these numbers I am reading seem incredibly impressive for one location to do. 60 deliveries per hour was mentioned. Whoa! How does one location possibly handle that volume? Are there any smaller pizza shop owners here or are most large operations with multiple locations?

 

[jokergerm]

There are a handful of us that run 10-20 drivers on a busy night and do 40-80 orders per hour, in a single location

You can adapt and get used to any level of sales with proper staffing and store layout.

When i 1st started out we were doing 6k weeks and it felt so busy i thought i was in fat city. Now that’s called a Friday. Lol

 

[PizzaSoft]

There are a handful of us that run 10-20 drivers on a busy night and do 40-80 orders per hour, in a single location

You can adapt and get used to any level of sales with proper staffing and store layout.

When i 1st started out we were doing 6k weeks and it felt so busy i thought i was in fat city. Now that’s called a Friday. Lol

That’s phenomenal. You must have at least 4 ovens all going at once and constantly packed. At that volume, that is just too many drivers and too many orders to see on a map. So since you always hire so many drivers, there is probably always at least one driver available at the shop waiting for the next order?

Since you have so many drivers, how does insurance and things like that factor into the equation? For example, suppose they got into an accident. Normally, I would think that since they are doing a job for you, you will be at least partially libel. But what happens if they are way off route for whatever reasons they have (ex. popping by a buddie’s house on the way to or back)? Are they still looked at as doing a job for you even though they really weren’t? Does that matter?

Some people have mentioned all of the things that drivers do, such as stop at places to get food or a drink, go to the bathroom, maybe even pop by a friends house to pick something up really fast. And at times, these stops will be out of the way. It seems as though that is accepted as the norm and the feeling is that there is not much that can be done about it. But consider this example. You put a waitress’ food up in the window. She doesn’t show up for a minute or two, and you figure “well, she must be busy”. Then you look over in the corner of the kitchen, and there she is texting someone or talking on the phone while her food is getting cold in the window. She doesn’t seem to care all that much. Would that make you scream? So how do you know your drivers aren’t doing the same thing with your hot food?

 

[PizzaSoft]

In cases where there was 10-20 drivers nobody would ever want to see all of the drivers and their orders on a map at one time as it would be an absolute mess. I would have to make the “view drivers” app or page be an expanding and collapsing list of the driver names where you can only see one driver and all of his active deliveries at a time on the map by clicking on the driver name. That would work for a really huge situation. Plus each driver name on the list would have their return to the store time right next to their name that would continually update in real time. Also, the drivers list would be sorted by time of return, so at anytime an owner can know with one glance which driver is getting back the soonest and when they are getting back. Finally, if a customer does call, you can quickly see an estimate of how long the driver will take to get to the customer’s stop, even if they aren’t the next stop as time estimates for each stop are shown after expanding the driver name on the list and they are continually updated in real time.

Does any of this sound helpful in a really big situation?

If so, here’s the possible problem or bad news. Since it is not integrated with the POS, this would mean that someone would have to enter in order info into the delivery management system, although not the whole order, just three pieces of order info. They would only have to enter a phone number in, an address (made faster by drop down with google autocomplete or addresses we have saved for that phone number), and then a dollar amount. I did a mock up and it comes to about 5 seconds per order to enter it in at a careful pace.

I am guessing that people would not want the order takers who take phone orders and key them in to also have to enter all of the deliveries into the delivery management app. That’s a double entry, even if it’s a small one. Plus they would be making the entries for all 10-20 drivers. That’s bad. Too much. Instead, I would leave it to each driver to look at his ticket on the bag, and take the 5 seconds to enter in only orders that are his, and enter them in on HIS driver app, not the central driver viewing app that the owner or order taker sees. Then he would see a thumbnail map giving him a general idea where each order is after he enters it. He could also drag orders on his list and drop them to change the order that he will do his deliveries. It gives him an adjusted ETA based on how he ordered his list, so he can decide the most efficient route by trying different delivery order combinations if it doesn’t matter which delivery gets delivered first or last.

So the drivers have more time than the order takers, and the load of entering in orders into the delivery management system is split between all of the drivers. So the question is, is 5 seconds of driver time per order possibly too much? I honestly don’t know. Doesn’t seem like it to me, but I’m not a shop owner. But if it is, then there is no solution that would ever be acceptable except for full integration with the POS. Without that however, this is the best and most efficient way that I can think of doing this.

 

[famousperry]

Doesn’t the customer get a text message if they are waiting for a delivery? I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t know that they can track their order. But I haven’t used Foodtec, and can only read about them, so I don’t know. Just curious.

Also, does the Foodtec app allow the owner to choose whether the drivers are visible to the customer or not? Or, does it have an option to allow the driver to decide on a case per case basis? If I was a driver coming from the wrong way, I would not want my exact location to be known. A general circle radius that indicates distance might be fine, as long as it doesn’t indicate direction. But there would be other times where I have one delivery and I am coming from the restaurant straight to the person’s house. Or maybe it’s the second delivery, but I am coming from the right direction. Then I would want to show my location, hopefully promoting customer experience and satisfaction, and hopefully a better tip. Customers might appreciate it more than people expect, and if the chains have their way, it’s going to be an “expectation” of the customer. Any why not? The technology has already been around and has even been accessible to regular people such as myself. Nothing really new.

there is an option to text the customer but we do not use it…the way I feel is that the less I can do to distract a driver the better so we put the tracking responsibility on the customers who wish to use it. I am pretty sure that I can turn the feature off but since we do not assign drivers runs in opposite directions that is not a problem. The biggest place where time is being wasted is in the back parking lot (drivers texting girlfriend, etc…heck I even had a driver doing 50 pushups after each run b/c his work interfered with his gym time WTF?!) so for us it helps knowing that they are back and quite often I will catch this BS now. My next step is to add a nice big display at my delivery workstation hooked up to my outdoor camera…the delivery-nanny cam should put an end to the nonsense but drivers never cease to amaze me

 

[PizzaSoft]

there is an option to text the customer but we do not use it…the way I feel is that the less I can do to distract a driver the better so we put the tracking responsibility on the customers who wish to use it. I am pretty sure that I can turn the feature off but since we do not assign drivers runs in opposite directions that is not a problem. The biggest place where time is being wasted is in the back parking lot (drivers texting girlfriend, etc…heck I even had a driver doing 50 pushups after each run b/c his work interfered with his gym time WTF?!) so for us it helps knowing that they are back and quite often I will catch this BS now. My next step is to add a nice big display at my delivery workstation hooked up to my outdoor camera…the delivery-nanny cam should put an end to the nonsense but drivers never cease to amaze me

Don’t they just give the driver an app and all he has to do is press a button marking the order as next and it will automatically send the text notification out? I would think that the driver would press this button when they are at the restaurant going to their first order, or when they are finished with another order and they are still at that delivery’s location. I don’t see the driver doing anything when he is driving. In fact, I would offer driving directions, only in case he gets lost as he is supposed to know where he’s going, but I would only offer the voice guided version so he keeps both eyes on the road and he doesn’t scramble around reading streets signs which could often distract him and cause a minor accident. I would be extremely sensitive about anything distracting the driver while driving. However, I would offer the restaurant the ability to call the driver with one button press if they really need to, but that would be the restaurant’s decision to distract him, and would probably only be used in an urgent situation. But it’s there if the restaurant needs it. No fumbling around looking for that particular driver’s phone number, just press a button next to his name. But everything that I would make would be designed to be done when driver is stopped. I couldn’t stop a driver from doing things when they are driving, but I would really give him very little reason to ever want to do that.

As far as all the games, yes I’ll bet there are all kinds of stories. I’ll bet everything seemed ok to you in the past, but now you know what it has probably always been like. Eye opening.

 

[tguag]

you may be looking at the wrong market…did you think about using your idea with delivery services? i know amazon contracts out there delivery in urban areas to services and we use a small family run company for daytime deliveries. it could help them with dispatching drivers and showing the restaurants where their next driver is…just a thought.

 

[PizzaSoft]

you may be looking at the wrong market…did you think about using your idea with delivery services? i know amazon contracts out there delivery in urban areas to services and we use a small family run company for daytime deliveries. it could help them with dispatching drivers and showing the restaurants where their next driver is…just a thought.

And a good thought it was. Thank you. I can market this to delivery services, but if you are sophisticated enough to be a delivery service, chances are you already have something like what I am thinking about. Maybe mine might be a little better, but I would still be a “me too” if they already have something. You would make that kind of investment up front if all you do is deliver for multiple restaurants, for example (or anything else). And it seems as though acceptance of a delivery service rather than having your own drivers that you control has been semi slow in the restaurant business. Some restaurants claim they will never do that, although they will let GH deliver it rather than their own driver only because in that case they got the order. So this would be for the people who want to keep their own drivers.

But actually I am thinking about doing a notification system for home contractor appointments. They are actually into tech and are always looking for the best ideas out there, whereas the restaurant business is generally slow to adapt to tech and adverse to it to some degree because it represents “complications” to many restaurants. Most don’t think about tech in a positive way and they only employ it only when they absolutely have to in order to survive. So although this could sell, it would be like pulling teeth and would take all sorts of hand holding and phone calls, no matter how simple I made it, and I just cannot do that. I don’t have the resources. I think contractors would need a lot less convincing, and each appt is worth far more than any delivery a restaurant does, so there would be the opportunity for a higher profit margin. If my price got raised by 5 cents per delivery or appt, a contractor probably wouldn’t flinch because his margins are so high. But a restaurant would probably freak.

 

[bodegahwy]

this is a flashy way to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist.

Exactly.

I could become a nifty feature with refinement but not one that I would want to pay for. Also, it would need to be tied into when to make the pie, not when to put it in the oven. I also would not care to have pies stacked up waiting for the time to put in the oven… just another place for things to go wrong… grab the pizza but not the wings. I would certainly not add it to my existing POS. Perhaps it would be a solid differentiator for people considering what POS to buy?

 

[PizzaSoft]

Exactly.

I could become a nifty feature with refinement but not one that I would want to pay for. Also, it would need to be tied into when to make the pie, not when to put it in the oven. I also would not care to have pies stacked up waiting for the time to put in the oven… just another place for things to go wrong… grab the pizza but not the wings. I would certainly not add it to my existing POS. Perhaps it would be a solid differentiator for people considering what POS to buy?

I really didn’t think that driver tracking for the restaurant would be the strongest feature of what I’m thinking of. It’s there if anybody needs it, but that’s all. If someone doesn’t care, they don’t even need to look at it (unless there was an emergency or something odd going on).

In fact, that wouldn’t even really be what someone pays 15 cents/order for. It’s really so that the customer gets a courtesy notification when the driver is on his way, that shows all order info, driver location (if that’s what the restaurant or driver chooses), and most importantly an ETA that updates in real time. And most importantly for the restaurant, the customer sees rotating advertising messages, specials or promos that the owner can easily create himself to hopefully promote a repeat sale that week.

Also, it does offer the driver some good features as well and a “one spot” place to have all of the info he needs at the touch of a button. Good for organization and more efficient routes.

I’m not thinking of customer getting notified when pizza is in oven or made or anything like that. I don’t think people care that much about that, they care about the bottom line. When’s it going to get here? Besides, now you have the kitchen staff involved, and it becomes too involved.

So Dominoes and Pizza Hut are both coming out with a feature where you can track when your pizza goes in the oven (I don’t care), when it comes out (I don’t care), and when the driver will arrive and maybe even where he is at (I care more about that). So if customers respond positively towards this (and so far they appear to be), as they did with online ordering when the big chains offered it and most independent restaurants never wanted to do it, then are smaller or independent pizza places going to get a new POS so that they can offer the same professional courtesy touch that the big chains are offering? I’m not so sure about that. So they either say “screw it”, or someone provides a cheap enough pay per use service so that they can keep up with the offerings of the big chains. Even if they intend to get a new POS with these capabilities and others, there’s no reason for them to not be offering this benefit to their customers until they get another POS, if it’s cheap enough.

http://nypost.com/2015/05/06/track-your-pizza-hut-delivery-driver-in-real-time/

But it’s definitely too soon to do this idea. At best, what will happen is the same thing that happened with online ordering. Nobody will care, nobody will want to pay for it, until the huge chains lead the way again, and then everybody finds out that customers actually do appreciate this. But that’s the best case scenario. The worst case is that nobody will ever care, but I don’t know why the huge chains are spending so much of their own money on this, and it’s a lot.

I appreciate the advice, especially on how you said you would never pay for it, and I don’t make free software, as you don’t make free pizza. I could put google ads on the page and make a little money from that, but there would be complaints about that as well, because owners would only want their own ads on the page. I smell too much resistance and explanation and hand holding required and I don’t have the human resources for all of that. I can’t go around and “sell” people on this, someone would have to recognize what it is and does, with proper web page explanation.

So I don’t think this will work. Certainly not yet. I think I should probably create something like this for a different industry with higher profit margins, such as home contractors. Profit margins are too small in the restaurant business, and as you said, everybody wants something for nothing. But if a contractor is doing a job for at least $200, he wouldn’t even flinch over a dollar, let alone 15 cents. He would pay it just to keep people out of his hair.

 

[Daddio]

The thing that strikes me as funny is, even when the customer has a fairly accurate idea of when the order will arrive, they will still wait until they answer the door to start looking for their wallet.

 

[PizzaSoft]

The thing that strikes me as funny is, even when the customer has a fairly accurate idea of when the order will arrive, they will still wait until they answer the door to start looking for their wallet.

That’s because nothing reminds them to do that. And some won’t do it no matter what, but I would and others would if I got a message and saw my order page and saw the guy was getting close. So what’s the percentages of those that will and won’t? I don’t know. It hasn’t been tested yet. But although I’m not a pizza place owner, I am a frequent customer and pizza enthusiast. Personally, I would think it’s a nice, professional touch and I would have my wallet ready and tip the driver a little more. But maybe I’m not like most. I don’t know.

 

[Daddio]

That’s because nothing reminds them to do that. And some won’t do it no matter what, but I would and others would if I got a message and saw my order page and saw the guy was getting close. So what’s the percentages of those that will and won’t? I don’t know. It hasn’t been tested yet. But although I’m not a pizza place owner, I am a frequent customer and pizza enthusiast. Personally, I would think it’s a nice, professional touch and I would have my wallet ready and tip the driver a little more. But maybe I’m not like most. I don’t know.

No matter when they know they will still wait until they answer the door. There are a few customers that ask for a call on arrival and still answer the door before looking for their money. These are the same type of people that call and ask How much is a pizza? or while they are on the phone yell to their friends and say I’m on the phone with the pizza place what does everyone want? They do this even when they have the option to order online. You can’t fix stupid.

 

[PizzaSoft]

No matter when they know they will still wait until they answer the door. There are a few customers that ask for a call on arrival and still answer the door before looking for their money. These are the same type of people that call and ask How much is a pizza? or while they are on the phone yell to their friends and say I’m on the phone with the pizza place what does everyone want? They do this even when they have the option to order online. You can’t fix stupid.

Yeah, I know. But there could be some cases where people want to see the driver first, see the pizza, see everything looks alright etc…so they come to the door to see that, and since everything looks ok, THEN they go and get their money. So maybe they don’t like bringing it to the door right away and they are cautious. Some people are strange that way. But for the most part, I could easily believe what you are saying, and you can’t fix it. But that can’t be everyone. I don’t do that. I’ve seen friends of mine order and they know how much it is and go to the door with money as well, and they didn’t even get a notification. They usually grab their wallet before they go to the door because they assume they will be using it in a moment after they open the door. But then again, they aren’t scared or super paranoid like some people are.

As far as the phone order, yeah, that’s just plain ignorance. No question about it.

 

[system]

Yeah, I know. But there could be some cases where people want to see the driver first, see the pizza, see everything looks alright etc…so they come to the door to see that, and since everything looks ok, THEN they go and get their money.

Seriously I think you will argue anything no matter how illogical your argument is. You are obviously here to try and sell your vision of the pizza delivery world without ever having stepped out into it. How about you get a job as a delivery driver for a month then come back with your results and a new appreciation for what the customers expectations are and how they match with the product you are trying to sell/develop. This is the advice that is typically given to people that want to get rich in this industry thinking they can do it because they make a great pizza at home.

 

[PizzaSoft]

Seriously I think you will argue anything no matter how illogical your argument is. You are obviously here to try and sell your vision of the pizza delivery world without ever having stepped out into it. How about you get a job as a delivery driver for a month then come back with your results and a new appreciation for what the customers expectations are and how they match with the product you are trying to sell/develop. This is the advice that is typically given to people that want to get rich in this industry thinking they can do it because they make a great pizza at re operations centeredhome.

Thank you for the advice. I think I might get it after your response. This is a very customer centered idea, but it looks like the focus is far more operations centered when it comes to this sector of the restaurant industry, so this will never go anywherewith independent pizza restaurants. Ill consider it for home contractors instead. So thank you,you saved me a lot of time and money. No, I was not a driver but I was a waiter and a bartender for years. Do you know what it’s like to have to manage potentially violent drunk people? It’s more than the inconvenience of people not having their stuff together and delaying you.But anyway, thank you for your honest words.