Spotlight: How Third-Party Delivery Impacts Your Brand

By John Capps

There are more ways than ever to grab a meal these days. You can dine in a restaurant, order takeout to pick up inside the restaurant or curbside, order delivery directly from a restaurant, or order delivery through a third-party delivery service, which might be delivered by a person or a drone.

With more potential touchpoints than ever before, there are both more opportunities for positive customer experiences and negative experiences.

Ensuring customers have a seamless, positive experience when ordering food is a top priority in building brand loyalty. An integral part of the delivery process is third-party delivery drivers. Ensuring drivers feel supported by restaurants is key to ensuring customers have a positive experience.

In this case study spotlight, we highlight W5’s role to support a quick-service restaurant’s understanding of what makes a positive pickup experience for third-party delivery drivers to ultimately improve the overall delivery experience for customers.

Case Study: Optimizing the Guest Experience for Third-Party Delivery Drivers

W5 worked with a national quick-service restaurant to strengthen its partnerships with third-party delivery services such as DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats.

Approach

W5 collaborated with the client to design a survey instrument to understand third-party delivery drivers’ motivations and interactions with the restaurant. This quantitative survey was completed by third-party delivery drivers who had recently delivered a meal from a quick-service restaurant.

Results

The research identified key drivers of satisfying delivery interactions with the client and key competitors and drivers of restaurant choice for delivery, and uncovered actions the client could take to positively impact the third-party driver preference of client deliveries.

The research illustrated that while third-party delivery drivers are largely concerned with earning potential when choosing whether to accept an order from a restaurant, they also feel respect from and communication with restaurant staff is highly important—they want to feel the restaurant and drivers are a team working together to provide exceptional customer service.

Drivers appreciate positive interaction with restaurant staff and feel this interaction improves their pickup experience, making them more likely to accept orders from the client in the future, and more likely to deliver a positive order experience to end customers.

Interested in seeing more of our QSR and Casual Dining work in action, click here!