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Online food ordering vs ordering by phone?


silvercover

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Online IMO is:

  • More cost effective for the employer:
    • Employees can multi-task between taking orders online if they are even required because it can be completely automated into the kitchen
    • Less food waste from mis-understood orders because now the user orders it all themselves and is directly printed on the kitchen order

    [*]Better customer experience: satisfaction of knowing exactly what you ordered and what would go in the kitchen

 

The list could go on, but ordering online is a lot more enjoyable for me. However, some people still like to talk to a real person when spending $$.

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You can pay by card over the phone.  Just ask before they hang up.

 

I think the convenience and accuracy is the best reason to go for online ordering.  Especially for restaurants which normally hire foreign workers who are then required to answer the phone, it's a nightmare to get an order in.  I've had to simply abandon phone orders because of food allergies.  "Are there peanuts in <name of dish>" is a sentence that many order-takers are unable to understand.  If that's the case, then they cannot take my order when I'm eating with someone with allergies.  Period.  If that same restaurant had a website (with state-mandated allergen information on the menu) then it would be a lot easier for me to figure out my order and place it without any confusion.

 

However, the drawback to online ordering is that you can rarely make special requests.  There's usually no field for "I want the cobb salad but figs instead of egg."  You can do that on the phone. 

 

I did have a weird experience recently with chili's.  Their online ordering is new, and apparently still has some kinks.  Plus, you can't pay online, you can only order.  My girlfriend ordered online and I picked it up, paying the total of $28.  When I got the food home, she saw the receipt and realized they had overcharged me by $6.  They didn't put a receipt in the bag and, lacking an actual payment, the website didn't give us one either.  I had to take it to the district manager to get the bugs straightened out. 

 

Bottom line is: if the online ordering system is robust and mature, and I'm not trying to order anything wacky or not on the menu, I would choose online ordering over phone ordering every single time, especially for places with non-english-speaking people answering the phone.  That's just stupid.

 

 

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Yeah, Chili's has a few bugs that I've ran across too... I've also had an order from Domnio's pizza when they first launched their online order system and it had the options pepperoni on the full pizza or half pizza. When I got the pizza it was a cheese pizza because apparently between the online ordering system (which sent me an email confirming pepperoni all the way across) and the kitchen there was a bug because the order they received said "no pepperoni". Morale of the story: test, test, test! ;)

 

Bottom line is: if the online ordering system is robust and mature, and I'm not trying to order anything wacky or not on the menu, I would choose online ordering over phone ordering every single time, especially for places with non-english-speaking people answering the phone.  That's just stupid.

:qft:

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Thank you guys. Do those sites you've ordered to, have some kind of special verification or confirmation upon user sign ups?

I believe pizza places take your email but do not verify it, but then again they do take a credit card right there so they don't need to make sure your email is valid.
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The main benefit for me is being able to pay by card.

 

 

Yeh and that way you don't feel obliged to tip lol

Generally I feel it's evil to not tip a driver properly, however there are some places which charge for delivery. If you're a delivery driver who works for a place that charges for delivery and you don't get paid enough, that's not my problem.  That $3 delivery charge is your tip, as far as I'm concerned.  If they don't charge for delivery, you should tip the guy since you didn't pay anything for having someone bring hot food to your house
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The main benefit for me is being able to pay by card.

 

 

Yeh and that way you don't feel obliged to tip lol

Generally I feel it's evil to not tip a driver properly, however there are some places which charge for delivery. If you're a delivery driver who works for a place that charges for delivery and you don't get paid enough, that's not my problem.  That $3 delivery charge is your tip, as far as I'm concerned.  If they don't charge for delivery, you should tip the guy since you didn't pay anything for having someone bring hot food to your house

Why, they get paid to do the job.

 

 

When I finish a website, my boss doesn't say, here Andy, I'll pay you an extra 30 quid on top of your wage for doing your job.

 

 

Besides, most of them phone you 4 times because they can't use a sat nav, turn up with a cold pizza 20 minutes late and then they're nice as pie thinking they're still getting a tip. Pay by card and don't tip, it's the future :)

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Why, they get paid to do the job.

Usually not very much, though in the UK it might be different.  In the US the drivers are usually paid less than the cooks, and they have to pay their own gas.  Most of them wouldn't make a profit on the day if they didn't get tips.

 

When I finish a website, my boss doesn't say, here Andy, I'll pay you an extra 30 quid on top of your wage for doing your job.
Do they not do performance based bonuses at your company?

 

Besides, most of them phone you 4 times because they can't use a sat nav, turn up with a cold pizza 20 minutes late and then they're nice as pie thinking they're still getting a tip.
That's a legitimate reason not to tip.  If it's cold or takes an unreasonable amount of time, I don't tip. 

 

I don't like the tipping culture, but then again I don't like the fact that fast food employees are surly, dead-eyed morons who can't get my order right.  Maybe if they all got $2/hr and relied on tips to pay their rent they'd smile and try to get my order right.  I tip workers in industries where tips are expected and the workers' salaries reflect that (delivery, waiting tables) and when I believe the worker has done a good job (haircut, cleaning, tailoring). 

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Why, they get paid to do the job.

Usually not very much, though in the UK it might be different.  In the US the drivers are usually paid less than the cooks, and they have to pay their own gas.  Most of them wouldn't make a profit on the day if they didn't get tips.

 

When I finish a website, my boss doesn't say, here Andy, I'll pay you an extra 30 quid on top of your wage for doing your job.
Do they not do performance based bonuses at your company?

 

Besides, most of them phone you 4 times because they can't use a sat nav, turn up with a cold pizza 20 minutes late and then they're nice as pie thinking they're still getting a tip.
That's a legitimate reason not to tip.  If it's cold or takes an unreasonable amount of time, I don't tip. 

 

I don't like the tipping culture, but then again I don't like the fact that fast food employees are surly, dead-eyed morons who can't get my order right.  Maybe if they all got $2/hr and relied on tips to pay their rent they'd smile and try to get my order right.  I tip workers in industries where tips are expected and the workers' salaries reflect that (delivery, waiting tables) and when I believe the worker has done a good job (haircut, cleaning, tailoring).

 

 

Yeh that's fair enough, and over here I guess they would get minimum wage, I only get paid 14k a year myself as I'm only a junior web developer, and no we don't get performance based bonuses, but the company I work for is not primarily a web development company; they do vehicle tracking, it's a good company to work for though because I like integrating code with real life situations and communicating with the hardware (tracking units) and actually seeing maps update with vehicle locations and stuff when I finish an application. Plus I consider myself lucky to have a job in the current economic climate.

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I used to work for a large pizza chain as a driver (to start, but I also worked in-store and as a manager). Drivers were paid minimum wage with the expectation that the customer would pay the other half of our wages via tips. There was a delivery charge but most of it went to reimburse us for gas: something like $.20 per mile, 5 miles on average. That ends up being more than enough (on average) but if you apply it to car maintenance too it wasn't very much. We worked for tips and would definitely prioritize based on what we thought we would receive. A vicious cycle.

 

For comparison, in-stores made a little more than minimum wage and managers a little more than that. As a manager, with experience and as the excellent inventory-taker that my superiors recognized me to be*, I only made $10 an hour. Which was absolutely horrible considering how drivers could make $5-$10/hr just in (untaxed ;)) tips. Most I've heard a manager make was about $11, but that's because she was good and would keep threatening to leave until they gave her a raise XD.

 

* After I went back to driving, the boss asked me to close as a manager once a week so our inventory counts would be accurate

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I order online, just another browser tab to add to my sea of browser tabs. Plus some businesses have an ordering tracking time/diagram thing, rather than muting my music so I can hear the front door knock, I can continue to enjoy listening to my music until the order tracker says "have left the shop". ;)

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