This story is part of a series based on The Path to Third-Party Excellence, a secret shopper study from Intouch Insight conducted exclusively for Restaurant Business and its sister publications CSP Daily News and Nation's Restaurant News.
Restaurants have reason to fear the steady march of convenience stores into foodservice. No question. But operators can take some comfort in knowing they outperform c-store retailers on just about every metric when it comes to third-party delivery.
That’s just one of the interesting nuggets revealed in The Path to Third-Party Excellence, a secret shopper study from Intouch Insight conducted exclusively for Restaurant Business and its sister publications CSP Daily News and Nation’s Restaurant News.
Here’s a look at some of the most thought-provoking takeaways from the report:
When it comes to third-party delivery satisfaction, restaurants beat out convenience stores. A “lack of clarity” over whether meal items are pre-packaged or made-to-order appears to be causing confusion in c-store deliveries, the report said. What’s more, consumers seem to have higher expectations of speediness when it comes to convenience stores vs. restaurants.
A surprising number of orders are delivered earlier than promised. Seventy-two percent of orders from Grubhub, Uber Eats and DoorDash, for both restaurants and c-stores, showed up earlier than the promoted time—an average of 12 minutes and 30 seconds ahead of schedule.
Indies fare better than chains when it comes to order accuracy. You might think chain restaurants would have more robust systems in place to ensure order accuracy than their mom-and-pop peers; you’d be wrong. Independent restaurants outperformed chains on accuracy in the study 89% to 83%. (Indies also scored higher in overall satisfaction than chain restaurants.)
And, for restaurants, there’s a wide accuracy swing between the big third-party delivery providers. DoorDash scored 98% accuracy in the study, followed by Uber Eats at 88% and Grubhub at 85%.
Restaurant order accuracy slumps in the late afternoon and again late at night. The study found 94% accuracy for breakfast deliveries but only 86% accuracy for late-night and 87% for late-afternoon deliveries.
Burger restaurants get props for customization, Asian concepts less so. Consumers surveyed said 100% of burger restaurants allowed them to customize their orders on third-party delivery apps, followed by 95% of Mexican restaurants, but just 89% of those serving Asian fare. (Asian restaurants, however, scored the highest satisfaction marks for speed of delivery service, tied with sandwich and sub restaurants.)
Consumers prefer a restaurant’s own delivery app. Just 6% of those surveyed said they favor third-party delivery apps, while 22% would vote for a restaurant’s own delivery channel. Among those third-party app users, half usually use one app, 31% are loyal to a single app and 19% like to switch between platforms.
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