How A Food Delivery Dispatch Software Helps Restaurants Handle Late Orders and Driver Changes

Food ordering and delivery today, mainly revolves around the words- quick commerce, restaurants, ghost kitchens, or cloud kitchens. Every time an order is placed, the work of a delivery agent actively comes into play. But as a business, there are a few caveats that we need to understand.

When the kitchen is running behind, it is important to check whether the assigned driver can still make the pickup. In case the driver declines, it is important to find out when another driver can get there. Once you are sure about it, then check whether you can still deliver within the time you gave the customer.

Food delivery dispatch software helps staff see who has accepted a delivery, who is on the way to the restaurant, and which orders have been picked up. During a busy shift, those details help the person at the counter give customers an answer without calling the kitchen and the driver for every order.

How Does A Restaurant Handle A Late Order On A Weekend? 

Weekends are getting busier than ever. Let’s get this with a simple and routine example. During a weekend dinner rush, an order is due to reach the customer by 8:35 p.m. At 8:10, the kitchen conveys a message that it needs ten more minutes. The shift lead updates the planned pickup time. Thereafter, the counter team tells the customer the order is running late and says they’ll send another update by 8:20.

Now we’ll quickly go through the nightmare that usually begins the moment delivery agents are not available or do not accept the order. Suppose the first driver declines the job. The dispatcher checks that the original offer is closed, then contacts a driver who is finishing a drop-off nearby. That driver can collect the food at 8:23 and accept the job. The dispatcher then tells the counter team who is coming.

At 8:14, the restaurant sends a revised estimate. ‘Sorry for the wait. We expect your order to arrive between 8:40 and 8:50.’

The food is ready at 8:20. When the driver arrives three minutes later, the counter team checks the order number and records the pickup. The customer gets the food at 8:44. The delivery met the revised estimate and arrived nine minutes after the original promise. 

This record of delivery can be kept and used by businesses to see how often customers are asked to wait longer. This can serve as a strong basis for improved decision making and subsequent customer service.

What To Do When A Delivery Runs Late

This is crisis management, the art of which modern-day businesses need to learn. Because when it comes to food deliveries, consumers globally are becoming ravenous, hence any delay, leads to dissatisfaction.

This makes it important to decide before the shift who will handle the late deliveries. The kitchen lead will confirm when the food is ready. The dispatcher will confirm who will pick it up. In the same order, the counter team or shift lead will keep the customer informed about the delivery updates. In a small restaurant, one person might handle the last two jobs.

Tell the customer when you expect to miss the promised window. If you are still looking for a driver, say when you’ll be in touch again and make them feel at ease. Once pickup is confirmed, give a delivery window that accounts for the drive to the customer.

It helps to know whether a driver has accepted, arrived at the restaurant, or collected the food. If they have arrived and the order is still at the counter, you can check what’s holding up the handoff. 

What To Track After The Shift

Now this is an important stage of what is to arrive for your business. Every critical touchpoint needs to be assessed and evaluated with proper reasoning. It is recommended to start with the times your team can use to work out where the real delay happened. 

Few of those bottlenecks that can be evaluated are as follows-

• Kitchen delay— How many minutes passed between the planned ready time and the time the food was ready?
• Reassignment time— How long did it take a replacement driver to accept after the first offer was declined, expired, or withdrawn?
• Wait for pickup— How long did the packed order sit at the restaurant before collection?
• On-time delivery rate— What share of completed orders arrived within the original promised window?
• Time to update the customer— How long did it take to send the first message after staff spotted the delay?

It is advisable to always be specific while categorising issues and problems that arise in the course of delivery fulfilment. Therefore, it makes sense to add a short note about what happened. For instance, the ‘kitchen needed ten more minutes’ tells you more than ‘late delivery.’ 

Businesses can also move a step ahead and review the notes by shift and location. For example, If weekend orders often take longer to prepare, wisdom lies in adjusting the prep estimates for that shift, and not adjusting the driver shifts. Likewise, if the food is usually ready on time and waits at the counter, it’s important to check driver coverage and when pickup offers go out.

What To Check In A Software Demo

When comparing food delivery management software, food businesses can ask to run through an order from their own restaurant. They can even check on a use case where the kitchen ran late or a driver dropped out. Moving a step ahead, they can also have the people who would handle it on shift watch the demo.

Few bullets that can give a clear glimpse into how it all functions are-

• Can the dispatcher see the updated ready time while checking driver availability?
• Can they close the old offer, send a new one, and see when it’s accepted?
• Who can message the customer? Can the next person on shift see what was sent?
• Which timestamps can a manager review after service? What can staff see when a third-party courier handles the delivery?

For restaurants with their own drivers, Hyperzod’s Autozod supports automatic and manual dispatch that enables them for quick delivery in today’s world of instant gratification. Staff can see driver availability and follow a delivery right from its assignment to final drop-off. 

If you are evaluating multi-restaurant delivery service software, bring a recent late order to a Hyperzod demo. Ask to walk through how your kitchen, dispatcher, and counter team would handle it.