Softskills for Staff on top of foodtech’s menu

Hyderabad-based Sohail Gupta (name changed) frequently uses food delivery apps such as Zomato and Swiggy, but last month his experience turned out to be anything other than appetizing. When he placed an order on Zomato, Gupta caught the delivery executive eating a few bites of his dinner. He promptly took pictures and posted it on social media. When Gupta complained to Zomato, they fired the delivery executive and offered to refund the money.

This is just one of the many operational risks food delivery companies such as Swiggy, Zomato and UberEats face, say investors in these startups, especially since timelines for delivery are short. As the food delivery markgrows in India, these companies are aggressively expanding their delivery network and investing a lot more in training their executives in soft skills.

"At the end of the day, logistics is a supply-side problem and the complex part is onboarding ground fleet, getting them accustomed to technology and soft skills training. This is key to scale and expansion," an investor in the food technology space told ET.

These food delivery startups are exploring a bunch of avenues to hire delivery executives, which include using the services of hiring and skilling agencies, advertising in local newspapers, referrals and offline hoardings. And, with rising complaints from customers, all these companies are broadly following the same set of parameters for onboarding their delivery fleet.

These include training delivery partners on technology, behavioural skills, personality development, guidelines for safe riding, skill development through customised simulation and case studies. "We check all identification documents and police verifications. The process currently takes around seven days, but we are working towards hiring in less than 48 hours," Zomato said. There are nearly 2,20,000 food delivery executives across platforms, with each earning ₹22,000-25,000 monthly on average, according to staffing firm Teamlease. As the sector is nascent, the attrition rate too is high, at around 60%, Teamlease said. "Every city has a mix of partners, both local and from other towns. However, most of our partners belong to the cities itself," Swiggy said in a statement.

Over the last year, Zomato and Swiggy have aggressively expanded into smaller towns and cities. The only criteria these companies consider at the time of onboarding a delivery executive is basic proficiency in English, fluency in the local language, and ability to ride a two-wheeler, say staffing companies. These processes are fairly new and are getting revised periodically, says Rohan Aggarwal, an analyst at Redseer consultancy.

"Even large operators only provide basic soft skills training, which includes minimum etiquette, problem handling and how to approach customers," said Rituparna Chakraborty, founder of Teamlease. Handling customers is the tricky part for most. A quick look at social media sites Twitter and Facebook indicate that customers escalate several issues, starting from missing items, late delivery, wrong products or no arrival of orders.

For instance, on Swiggy's social media handle, one customer had this to say: "Three delivery persons have been assigned for my order till now, one got his bike punctured, second didn't confirm on his app, third one vanished away, what is happening?"

"There is a lack of demand for this type of work, for which we are creating a fasttrack registration program for licenses," Zomato said, adding it also works with police across states to train delivery executives on road safety regulations.

Source:-https://retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/food-entertainment/food-services/softskills-for-staff-on-top-of-foodtechs-menu/69000375