Using a Third-Party Food Delivery Service vs. Managing Your Own

Delivery is a well-known service used by restaurants to further reach their customers and expand their brand. Many restaurants are deciding the best way to offer these services, whether it is using their own staff or a third-party food delivery service. 

Here are some points to consider when deciding which option to pursue, and how the right POS system is important when making your decision because it can streamline the entire process—from order to payment to delivery.

Considerations When Keeping Delivery Service In-House

Using your staff to perform deliveries is the simplest of your options. They provide the best representation of your brand and are already well versed in the other options you have to offer. 

Coordinating deliveries and driver schedules could be as easy as grabbing a free staff member to make delivery rounds. Transactions, including tips and sales tax, would all be stored in one place and would eliminate any reliance on an outside party for financial information. 

There are several things to consider if you wanted to use your staff to make deliveries.

Restaurant Fleet

Someone somewhere likely needs a car to make the delivery, so there are benefits to being the one who maintains the vehicle. If you owned the vehicle or fleet, you could monitor and ensure proper maintenance and insurance of the vehicle(s) thus limiting something going wrong and costing you time, money, and/or customers. With that being said, it is important to note that with owning a vehicle, or vehicles, there is an initial investment as well as the maintenance, which comes at a price.

Insurance

In addition to the cost of buying and maintaining a vehicle, you must factor in the cost of insurance; it is a necessary and required cost with regards to limiting liability and financial risk. With the right insurance plan, you and your staff can feel protected without breaking the bank. However, another consideration is the added expense of insuring drivers that have less than ideal driving records, thus increasing the premium for adequate coverage.

Personal Vehicles

The main benefit of allowing staff to drive their own cars is that you have no upfront cost. It would also not be your responsibility to maintain their vehicles or insurance, further limiting your financial involvement. However, because you are not responsible for the vehicle, there is no guarantee on the condition; you run the risk of their car not being reliable which could affect the deliveries in an efficient manner which can further risk the quality of your product. 

As you can see, although managing your own delivery service is doable, it could become overly complex and costly fairly quickly. 

What to Know Before Hiring Third-Party Food Delivery Services

Outsourcing your restaurant’s delivery tasks to a third-party food delivery service can save you valuable time and money. Your staff can remain focused on providing a high level of service to customers while the delivery service uses its own resources to make fast deliveries. However, third-party delivery services can also harm your brand and take away some of the control over how your product is seen by your customers.

Skilled and Knowledgeable Drivers

Although you will lose some control of your brand once products leave your restaurant, much of this can be offset by the benefits of an outside delivery service. Their drivers will be more experienced than your internal staff and will have a firmer grasp on timely shortcuts during traffic or routes that cut precious minutes off of the delivery time. 

These nuances can help to yield better results through a friendly, stress-free service that delivers the same quality offered on your dining room plates.

Third-Party Requirements

Some third-party delivery services require food to be packed into containers that meet certain criteria. Should you discover that the required containers have a detrimental impact on the quality of the meals you are serving, you may need to scramble. You could find yourself needing  to address the issue by making an unplanned update to your takeout menu or switching to another third-party delivery partner that better fits your brand and quality expectations.

POS Technology Should Support Either Path

Regardless of the delivery path you choose, the technology needed to support delivery operations is largely the same. You need the ability to use mobile, cloud-based tools for accepting payment from anywhere and to support an online ordering site. And with regards to your website, you will want it to be pre-configured by your POS solution provider to ensure it can effortlessly connect to your POS solution and effectively share and store all of your transaction data.

Coordinating deliveries is a crucial component that can thrive with the right POS technology in place. Drivers need to know where to go, what to take, and when, and they should have the ability to accept any type of payment while standing on a customer’s doorstep. This is an area where mobile POS technology can help. Through a POS-provided app, there are options for communicating with the third-party delivery service by communicating order statuses back to the customer.

Streamline Services With Help From an Expert

Trying to coordinate deliveries presents restaurants with a variety of considerations and areas of organization to get right. The delivery driver is suddenly thrust into the spotlight as a representative of your brand and must have the tools needed to succeed. Whether it is your employee or a driver for a third party, order coordination, payment, and final delivery must all work together like a well-oiled machine. Accomplishing this in today’s fast-paced world is only possible with the right POS tools in your pocket.

Adding third-party food delivery services to your business model adds more complexity to your restaurant business strategy. The in-depth experience talech consultants have in the restaurant industry is available for any guidance you need, both business and technical. We strive to introduce the most effective POS functionality into your restaurant to help you to succeed and grow.