In the last two decades with the advancement in technology, online alternatives for offline shopping slowly turned into a necessity. With the increasing needs of people, the number of startups popped up at an increasing rate to cater to this need. Online Food Delivery Industry being one such necessity.
The food startup, Swiggy-which started in 2014 showed great progress nationally within a few years and now for online food deliveries, it’s one of the top listed services that people opt for. But what’s so unique about Swiggy? It’s not like it's the very first online food delivery company in India.
The time required for food delivery is just as important as the quality and diversity of food orders. The founders of Swiggy focused on this and meticulously built up a proper logistic network along with a broad fleet of their own delivery boys.
The key features that helped Swiggy in becoming India’s largest food delivery platform are:
1) An easy to operate UI (user interface)of website and application
2) Connections with a large number of local restaurants to ensure fast delivery
3) Strong marketing that include SEO (search engine optimization), meaningful campaigns and emailing of advertising brochures
4) Minimal delivery charge
5) 24/7 customer support.
Food Panda, a similar food delivery startup based in Germany was set up 2 years earlier than Swiggy. After a few years of successful budding, incubation of several faults in the business plan made it fail miserably in its foothold.
The company was working more as a third party between restaurants and customers rather than providing a proper platform for users to order food online in the comfort of their homes.
The loss in customers was mainly due to:
1) Technical faults in the application
2) Long response time
3) Delay in attending to customers’ requests
4) Unprofessional interaction.
A long lasting startup’s building block is customer trust and satisfaction. Proper business planning that aligns with customer service greatly contributes to that. The companies that keep this in mind never fail.