Customers are ordering more delivery than ever. That we’ve known for a while.
According to a new survey from restaurant tech supplier Tillster, consumers plan to order delivery from a fast-food or fast-casual restaurant 2.5 times a month over the next three months, a 32% increase from before the pandemic.
But all that increased delivery behavior has baggage. For one thing, most customers tend to be underwhelmed by the final product.
That’s just one surprising finding from Tillster’s Delivery Index, a canvas of more than 1,000 U.S. fast-food and fast-casual customers ages 18 and up that was published Thursday.
Here’s a look.
Most delivery customers end up unsatisfied.
Almost 60% of respondents said their food delivery experience often doesn’t live up to expectations. The main culprits are long wait times and poor food quality.
In terms of wait times, 40 minutes seems to be the limit, according to Tillster. Four out of 10 people are willing to wait that long for their food, with a steep drop-off after that: 21% of people said they’d wait 41 minutes or more.
On one hand, this is discouraging. Food that has traveled for sometimes 30 minutes or more will never be as good as a meal served fresh in the restaurant. On the other hand, there is lots of room to impress customers if restaurants can figure out how to make delivery better and faster.
They want delivery wherever they are.
The message of food delivery these days tends to focus on the home. How many times have we heard some version of “Order dinner without getting off the couch”?
But many survey respondents (64% of people under age 44) said they’d like to be able to order delivery when they're out and about, at parks or concerts.
This is the essence of Domino’s Hotspots program, which allows people to order food to locations that don’t have a street address, like parking lots and beaches.
Many younger customers (66% of Gen Z and millennials) said they would provide their location in exchange for special offers. So there’s definitely an opportunity here for brands willing to take on some of the added complications of delivering food to public spaces.
Most people don’t want to order from DoorDash, Grubhub or Uber Eats.
We’ve written this before, and it's been underscored again and again: Customers really want to order directly from your restaurant.
Nearly 45% told Tillster they prefer to order delivery from a restaurant’s website or app.
Another 22% said they prefer ordering over the phone—a seemingly old-fashioned habit that remains common.
So that’s a total of about 67% of customers who go straight to the source when ordering delivery.
Fewer than 10% prefer to order from a third-party aggregator like DoorDash.
There are a few reasons for this. First-party ordering can be easier for the customer: Information like past orders is saved, and people can earn loyalty points or cash in rewards.
Also, at least some consumers know it’s better for the restaurant when they order direct, and they want to help out local businesses.
Ordering directly can also carry fewer fees and be more affordable.
And, as Tillster points out, “customers love brands, not delivery.” It makes sense that they’d seek out their favorite restaurant to order.
Gen Z bucks the trends.
When it comes to the younger generation that so many restaurant chains are chasing, you can throw much of the above information out the window. Gen Z is kind of its own animal, Tillster found.
Customers between the ages of 18 and 24 are more likely than others to order delivery across multiple mealtimes. In general, dinner is the most popular delivery period, but Gen Zers tend to over-index at lunch and late-night.
A decent chunk of Gen Zers are willing to pay more—a lot more—for delivery. Two out of 10 would pay $10 or more in delivery fees, according to Tillster.
They’re also less loyal and more likely to use third-party delivery apps. In fact, those apps are the top ordering method for Gen Z. Tillster speculated it’s because they haven’t developed brand allegiances yet.