RITE AID’s Post

The end of an era. Drizly's founding represented a fundamental sea change in beverage alcohol retailing in the United States. What Cory and the team, including Cathy Lewenberg and Becca Goldklang accomplished is nothing short of amazing. Online ordering of alcohol isn't going anywhere, and I think the partners that most provide a high quality service to both consumers AND retailer partners will be those that have the most success going forward. Independent retailers are the lifeblood of our industry and having solutions to grow their business digitally is critical for their future success. #digital #beveragealcohol #wineandspirits

Check out this quick video to learn about the Speedy Eats concept. If you’d like more information, let me know!

Grocery Dive: -With back-to-school season underway, DoorDash is upping its efforts to prevent people who are underage from ordering alcohol through the e-commerce provider’s platform.  -DoorDash announced last Thursday, new safety measures it is undertaking in Massachusetts — a state with a high concentration of college students.  -These updates include blocking deliveries to college campuses and implementing bans on similar high-risk areas; requiring delivery workers to complete an alcohol compliance module on safe and responsible delivery in order to have the ability to make alcohol deliveries; and putting in place a revamped returns process that makes it easier for couriers to return alcohol if a delivery cannot be completed.  #beverageindustry #beerindustry #alcoholicbeverages

As a follow up to my previous post, this is the criminal side to DoorDash which is the equivalent to shoplifting by the customer and sanctioned by the platform. The customer claims something is missing. I can document that it’s not. There is no option to self dispute; I’ve evidently used my maximum number of self disputes available (but they encourage me to anyways). DoorDash can’t tell you what’s missing, but they credit the customer 25% of the order. I’m paying 30% commission for my order so it’s not like I’m rolling in profit here. Further, I can block a bad dasher from coming back but I cannot ban a bad customer. The prudent thing to do is shut off the channel. But, it brings me in a substantial amount of business and DoorDash knows that. Last year I spoke with an operations guy with 21 Taco Bell restaurants. They did something like $2 million a month with DoorDash, and had $100K a month in in food theft refunds facilitated by 3rd party delivery channels. Yes, they made mistakes but if one burrito was bad, DD would refund the entire order, not the individual item. I guess I’m lucky in that what my customers are claiming is missing is only resulting in a 25% discount on their meal instead of losing the entire sale. But, even with Voosh and video AI of order inspection like Gritsee, if DoorDash won’t accept proof of completeness and won’t allow self disputing, the tools won’t help. There needs to be accountability and a fair resolution with these companies; they can’t ask us to give them market prices for menus and no markups, when they are marking our orders down to suit themselves. What does anyone else see as a percentage of their DD/UE/GH refunds to customers? Less than 2% More? And how do you counteract that yourselves? Sydney Sivils Shawn P. Walchef Gregg Majewski Carl Orsbourn Marsha Edmands #foodtheft #restaurantoperations #3rdparty #pizza

I have been thinking alot about this. I would love to see drivers that took actual responsibility for their "gig" and treat it like the business it is. However the 3PD providers will let pretty much anyone set up an account as long as they aren't a hazard to society. (ALthough I had one driver that was working for me that had a brain injury and impulse control problems that was deactivated from door dash for grabbing a girls rear end while picking up at Taco Bell). I think the time has come for restaurant owners to mover towards a hybrid delivery model and flip the script by working with someone to subcontract their own drivers with the understanding that the drivers would pick up a majority of the Inhouse and 3PD orders. Share back some of the revenue with te drivers and restaurant owners even if it is a few cents. If restaurants banded together in something more like a national Co-Op that helped them move towards a hybrid or self delivery model I think more people would be happier. But that is hard when you have DoorDash throwing around 15K checks to get restaurants to sign up. #thedeliverybrokers https://lnkd.in/eDgdV6MM

My trending topic, visibility into DoorDash (but not limited to just them) and the refund / dispute data brought me to Chris Munz of Voosh. If 🎙️Zack Oates 💭 is the poster boy for customer satisfaction reviews and winback strategy, Chris is his equivalent in the 3PL space. We’re drilling down into the data that triggers the disputes, chargebacks and win rates, and building strategies to minimize those claims, starting with just a $19 Wyze camera. Already I’ve seen a 9% increase in DoorDash order volume and a decrease in refunds in two weeks. If you don’t have visibility into your 3PL costs, this would be a good first step and put AI to work for that process. In my opinion. Shawn P. Walchef Logan Niles Marsha Edmands Andrew Lambert Carl Orsbourn Angela Diffly Jimmy Frischling #restaurantbusiness #pizzeria #chargebacks

If you've not seen it yet and have any sort of interest in grocery deliveries then this interview with Suzy is worth a read! Mentions a few of the things we have worked on recently and are thinking about doing next.

Do you miss your pizza delivery driver? Having seen the transition of rapid growth of online ordering, then apps, then third-party delivery in my 12 years at Papa John’s, I was drawn to this piece by Michael Graff of Axios for The Atlantic While it’s an nostalgic snapshot of life as a college-aged delivery driver (for the competition 😉) and of pizza in the 80s and 90s, my takeaway is really about the impact of technology and the independent contractor on ownership and customer service: - having your delivery drivers connected to the process of making the pizza and knowing what goes into it, gives them a greater ‘ownership’ of the product and how it makes it to the customer - Although we’ve gained a myriad of conveniences with third-party delivery, we’ve lost the connection of “regular” customers, which degrades overall service. It poses a really interesting opportunity for differentiation amongst DoorDash versus Uber Eats versus Grubhub… What if they somehow analyzed the the pattern of drivers/orders/areas to create a “preferred customer“ list for a driver? How would you as a consumer react to that? Would it result in better tips AND a better experience? Check out the article and let me know what you think! https://lnkd.in/eaTiuzcv

I am always on the lookout for profiles of good and sometimes bad customer service. I love recounting the positive experiences the best because they occur less frequently and they excite me the most. The excitement comes from the fact that they usually involve demonstrations of two very important elements in life. Those being excellent communication and finding a way to relate to others through active listening and/or great follow up that is often unexpected. Two things I love seeing in practice in the real world. Case in point was my recent interaction with Brian, my DoorDash, delivery driver that is pictured here. Let’s face it, DoorDash is a luxury that often involves little real communication and has somewhat become mostly a transaction experience. It is rare you ever hear from a driver unless they can’t find you. Not on this early morning run though. Brian did a simple, but yet unexpected thing, in asking if I needed him to request any condiments or anything else. That simple thing I would venture to say gets him not only high ratings on the platform, but probably higher rewards in better tips. He also probably feels better knowing he has gone the extra, unexpected mile for people. I sheepishly admit to probably using DoorDash a hundred times over the years, and I can recall only two times where this type of positive interaction occurred. Such a simple thing, but being able to get that extra sauce or to remember to verify an often missed item can make or break the meal. Putting yourself in the shoes of your customer by anticipating an unexpected need and then meeting it through good communication goes a long way to delivering outstanding customer service. Being in remarketing for many years, you meet a lot of people wanting to sell you things. It should be noted these same actions are also what the best sales people I have met in my career practice everyday. Further, I try my best to think of ways to do this in my daily interaction with people and love seeing their reactions when I’m successful. So as you go forward today, keep these simple things in mind when you are carrying out whatever service you may be doing at work or even in your personal lives. It applies as much to showing care and love for family and friends as it does to your customers. Have a great rest of your week! We have almost made it to March and that means spring is near. 😃 #customerservice #goingtheextramile #profilesinexcellence #doordash #sales