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Zomato

Enabling delivery partners to tackle delivery issues!
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Team

2 designers

Project type

Conceptual

Duration

1 month

Tools

Figjam, Google docs

Objective

To deepen our understanding of delivery partner (DP) application and to learn about how partners are perceiving an existing delivery flow to establish a clear strategy for implementing a new feature or change to an existing feature and removing a feature

Project outcome

  • We identified multiple gaps & opportunities during the delivery journey.

  • We conceptualized one solution which was a whole new user flow & that opened up a peer-driven space for further exploration.

  • We tried to get holistic research done with an extra focus on emotions to build the rationale for the proposed solution.

Scope

Geographic areas

  • Mumbai, India

  • Bangalore, India

Methodology

For Information gathering:​​

  • User Interview: Prepared questions targeted to both primary and secondary stakeholders, and asked users in a face-to-face setting.

  • Guided tour: Asked users to give a tour of their space relevant to the delivery flow.

  • Shadowing: Spent sometime following the target audience and carefully observing how they interact with other stakeholders, with the environment, and with existing products, processes, or technology.

For analysis of information:

  • Task analysis by journey map: Illustrated the steps, the delivery partner takes in order to achieve a successful delivery

  • Behavioral mapping diagram using emotional appraisal framework and service blueprint: To understand DP behavior at each stage of the delivery and how they are affected by a given space or the movements and activities of people within that space. Focusing on the breakdowns, coping mechanisms, and frequently repeated behaviors— all of which can signify an opportunity for a new feature or modification of the existing process

Participant criteria

We started with mapping stakeholders to visualize all the stakeholders that influence the delivery journey & decide the stakeholders we want to focus on.

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To understand the delivery landscape from the point the order is accepted by the delivery partner till it is delivered and how other stakeholder impacts the delivery and experience of the delivery partner within Zomato, we filtered the below stakeholders as primary and secondary

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Delivery Partner

Primary Stakeholder

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Restaturant Partner

Secondary Stakeholder

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End Customer

Secondary Stakeholder

Stakeholder mapping

We interviewed 10+ Zomato riders, 4+ restaurants, & 4+ customers to:

  • Get a clear picture of the experience end to end

  • Get insights to create the service blueprint

  • Know how other stakeholders influenced the pain points of DPs

User Research

To deepen our understanding of delivery partner(DP) application and to learn about how partners are perceiving an existing delivery flow to establish a clear strategy for implementing a new feature or change to an existing feature and removing a feature

Contextual inquiry areas

Below are the areas we decided on the scope for inquiries & interviews for delivery partner.

Situational

  • Before & after Pandemic

  • Emergency situations

  • Delivery challenges

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Emotional

  • Motivations

  • Enablers

  • Barriers

  • Frustrations

  • What makes them leave?

Professional

  • Career aspirations

  • Finances

  • Health & insuarance

  • Day in the life

  • App usage

The above areas were defined using the Emotional Appraisal Framework:

When a problem/emergency occurs during delivery…

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Relevance

  • Outliers, cannot predict emergencies

  • Can prepare for weather challenges

  • Familiarity increases with experience 

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Implication

  • Impact on earning & rating

  • Motive - get help/resolve the issue as soon as possible

  • Loss/damage of health and/or vehicle

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Coping

  • Less control

  • The power lies more with admin & TL

  • Adaptability is influenced by the impact of distress/issue faced

​

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Norm Significance

  • Can associate earning worth with self-worth

  • Pressure to earn in case of dependents

  • Pressure due to absolute penalty conditions

Observatory shadowing

We conducted the shadowing exercise for a few days observing delivery partners:

  • To understand the interactions of a delivery person with restaurants

  • Their behavior during pickup

  • Interactions with other delivery partners during the wait time

Some of the key findings are:​​

  • Small Restaurants- DPs did not spend much time near these & often quickly moved in & out for order pickup

  • Mid-size & big Restaurants- DPs often gathered & took breaks at verandas in front of such establishments.

  • DPs enabled by photo confirmation of order pickup & restaurant rating option to tackle
    issues with restaurants.

Focus group discussion

Following up on our observation of DPs grouping in front of restaurants, we found an opportunity for quick focus group discussions

KEY INSIGHTS

Key Insight : DPs bond together while working together

Q: How is your relationship with your peer DPs?

​“I have my lunch with some because we work in the same area. I make friends while waiting for the order. We share jokes, and have our WhatsApp group too.”

Research synthesis

Service blueprint and delivery partner journey map

Created incorporating the stages of:

  • Order assigned to DP

  • Delivery:

    • Pickup from the restaurant

    • Driving for delivery

    • Reaching customer’s doorstep

  • Handover to customer

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Service blueprint (Click on the image to zoom in)

Journey Map

Delivery partner journey map (Click on the image to zoom in)

Major problems identified in the delivery phase

Based on our research we had gathered a lot of flaws in the delivery phase for the delivery partner and some of the major ones are below

Unaddressed Delivery Issues 

Not able to reach team leader while they need support apart from the chat support available, especially during the time when they are not sure about the next step due to external factors affecting delivery time like traffic police, or broken road or when restaurant partner refused to give order due item being out of stock, etc

Lack of transparency between primary & secondary users

Situations where the restaurant partner spilled the food while packing, while the chef took more extended time than assigned, and also at times when items are out of stock. Also, situations where customers entered the wrong address, or chose a place near their home.

No solution for emergency during delivery

Many delivery partners didn’t have good efficient battery mobiles

In case of a personal or medical emergency during the delivery phase there was no option for DP to inform the Zomato team within the application as most of the time TL was unreachable.

In case of vehicle breakdown, delivery partner didn’t have the option to inform within the app the customer of the delivery delay

Delivery partners are the face of Zomato as a brand and they were put in front of all the ill behavior of customers and restaurant

Solution & Validation

We brainstormed a few ideas and further used 'Jobs to be done' to refine our solution​ 

During SOS - There should be some support option that lets the delivery partner inform the team leader about the situation

Replace team leader with automatic order distribution or 

change the point of contact from team leader to a grievance officer