INDIA – Food delivery platform Zomato has launched its order scheduling feature, which allows customers to schedule deliveries from two hours to two days in advance.

Zomato’s latest service is now available in over 35,000 restaurants across 30 cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, and Ahmedabad.

This new feature enables customers to plan their meals and set preferred delivery times. If a selected time slot is unavailable, an alternative is proposed at checkout.

The service also allows customers to cancel orders up to three hours before the scheduled delivery. This order scheduling feature benefits both customers and restaurant partners by potentially increasing order volumes.

Restaurants can leverage this feature to maximize capacity during slower periods, thus boosting business without requiring additional training, as the feature integrates seamlessly into existing workflows.

Zomato has implemented quality measures to support the smooth operation of this feature, including a curated list of restaurants that consistently meet kitchen preparation times and maintain high availability.

Additionally, restaurants receive early notifications for scheduled orders, providing sufficient time for timely preparation and delivery. Restaurants can also manage item or category availability for scheduled orders, minimizing any risk of unavailability.

In July 2024, Zomato introduced its Brand Packs feature to enhance customer loyalty.

This initiative rewards frequent customers with exclusive offers and discounts, aligning with Zomato’s strategy to boost efficiency and maintain a competitive edge over rivals such as Swiggy by catering to unique customer needs.

Zomato’s founder, Deepinder Goyal, reported that over 4,000 restaurants have adopted Brand Packs, with more than one million purchased by customers.

That same month, Zomato added a feature allowing customers to delete their order history, a response to a request from a user named Karan Singh. Customers can now manage their data privacy by selecting and removing specific orders in the Your Orders tab.

The food delivery platform also relaunched its Legends intercity service, which allows customers to order dishes from different restaurants across select cities.

It permits the combination of dishes from several eateries in a single order.

The service is currently available across Indian cities such as Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region) and Bengaluru, with plans for further expansion.

Sign up to receive our email newsletters with the latest news updates and insights from Africa and the World HERE