How Just Eat Delivers Online Food Customer Service on Twitter
Online food-delivery platforms are expanding choice and convenience that allow customers to order from a wide selection of restaurants with their mobile apps. These same digital-first customers are also turning to social media for help, creating new opportunity’s for brands to turn convenience into loyalty.
Just Eat is one of the UK’s premier online platforms for takeaway food delivery. With over 67,000 takeaway restaurants and 100+ cuisine types available to over 17 million active users worldwide.
Started from humble beginnings in a Danish basement in 2001, Just Eat has grown its business both domestically and internationally with a listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2014 and a host of recent acquisitions including it’s main UK competitor hungryhouse, Canada’s SkipTheDishes and four international competitors in Spain, Italy, Brazil and Mexico.
According to David Buttress, CEO at Just Eat PLC — New Years Day is one of the best days for takeaway across Europe. So, we decided to take a closer look at how @JustEatUK performed for customer service on Twitter over the New Year period from 01/01/2017 to 02/01/2017…
Inbound Volume
Over the two days, New Years Day and Bank Holiday Monday, @JustEatUK received a total of 499 public mentions to their handle on Twitter…
Response Rate
The @JustEat support team responded to 68% (339) inbound mentions received over the two days…
Responses under 30 mins
…of which 84% (285) of those responses were made publicly in under 30 mins.
Twitter Support Coverage
Typically the @JustEatUK team were most active from 2pm — 11pm on New Years Day and Bank Holiday Monday. Service peaked at 3pm for the lunch time rush with nearly 70 replies per hour and again between 8–9pm for dinner with 50-60 replies per hour.
Top Hastags
@JustEatUK customers were a hungry, hungover and hangry bunch over the New Years period…
Sentiment
Peak periods can always be demanding for any business, but with an estimated half a million online orders from hungry customers waiting for their food the @JustEatUK team certainly had a tough job. Despite the hungry and hangry customers the team did well to keep up with the high demand of requests from customers on Twitter achieving a well deserved positive sentiment score for all their hard work.
This positive sentiment was mainly attributed to the fast responses and high levels of empathetic engagement with customers who were having issues or delays with their orders during busy periods of trading with restaurant partners.
Food Technology & Innovation
Just Eat are one of a number of online food delivery companies who are investing in new technologies to constantly disrupt themselves, seeking new ways to improve the experience and conveniance for customers.
Just Eat Messenger Bot
Built using the Microsoft Bot Framework, this new development from Just Eat sees AI integrated into the ordering experience to ensure that customers receive the best, round the clock support and service. The Bot engages with customers to coach and inspire their food choices and offers up a direct communication channel with the Just Eat support team. Reflecting the tone of voice and personality of the Just Eat brand, the bot offers customers a selection of different options for finding the food they’re after depending where their mood takes them.
Just Eat Robot Delivery
In September 2016, Just Eat began testing self-driving delivery robots on the streets of London, designed to increase delivery capacity for restaurant partners. Pilots are now taking place on the streets of Greenwich in London, ahead of the first live customer delivery.
Yes. It’s true. The Robots are coming armed with Chicken Tikka Masala :o)
Just Eat Food Tech Accelerator
To encourage innovation in this fast moving industry, Just Eat have set up a new accelerator programme with £20k investment up for grabs for a 5% equity stake in your company. Got a idea for foodtech? Then why not apply to the Just Eat FoodTech Accelerator….
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that seasonal factors have historically affected traditional dine-in restaurants, with customers less likely to leave the home to eat out, instead opting for a takeaway. With the rise in popularity of online food delivery, both restaurants and consumers are benefiting from new online business models focused on convenience. Although over half of UK consumers still order food directly from restaurants using the telephone, the online food delivery market is set for massive growth over the next few years as consumers move increasingly towards mobile channels.
Together with this expected shift in consumer behaviour, Just Eat have aggressively positioned themselves as market leaders, with a number of key acquisitions, investments in new foodtech innovation, and a strong digital-first brand focused on creating convenience and loyalty with their customers.
It now remains to be seen how American giants Amazon (Restaurants) and Uber (Eats) along with UK competitors Deliveroo fare in this ferociously competitive market over the next few years.
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For indicative purposes all metric analyses have been conducted over a period of 2 days from (01/01/2017–01/02/2017) Accounts are programmatically scored out of 100 on our performance index across 4 metrics. Inbound mention volumes (25%), Response Rate (25%), Responses under 30 mins (25%) and Sentiment (25%). All metrics are available and updated every 15 mins on HelpHandles.com
