5 Ways Foodpanda Can Create a Better User Experience
You might have heard of Foodpanda. One of the most popular food delivery services in Asia (though they also operate somewhere else). Founded in March 2012, operating in 10 countries, and a crazy high valuation, I think they must be doing one thing or two right.
The thing is, I keep seeing complaints on my Facebook of how frustrating it is to use Foodpanda. Actually, my ex-CEO who is normally really reasonable and understanding, who is a startup mentor, who is the CEO of one of the biggest marketplaces in Thailand, and who does not normally vent about stuff on social media, posted a month ago how he’s no longer a Foodpanda customer.
As a heavy user, and also a product person, I can’t help but think of a way to make the user experiences a bit better. I came up with a few things that I know you might want as well :)
Oh sh** button!
Everyone has that “Oh sh**!” moment. That’s why Gmail needs to introduce the “undo” feature after you hit send. It’s normal. The thing is, there’s no undo option on Foodpanda. After you click the order button, you are done.
You might forget to add the order instructions your wife told you to. You might order lunch at the office but didn’t have time to change the address to your house for dinner. You might want to add a delivery instruction once you see that the pin on the Foodpanda map is not correct. There is a long list of use cases I can bring up here.
You can actually send a message to their support but they normally will say “Sorry, but nothing can be done”. Trust me I even have the conversation log for that if you want to see.
There could be an easy solution for this, just add that “Oh sh**” button! Have a screen overlay show up while the system is processing the order, with a few seconds delay. A user will have a quick glance at important information and get a chance to make changes if they have to. This will not just improve the UX side of things but will reduce workload for the CS team as well.
Cancellation
Do you know what is the worst thing that can happen to a hungry person? It’s his food order being ignored. A lot of times, when you order stuff from Foodpanda, your order will stuck in the “waiting for restuarant to accept your order” status for hours. And yes, you can go to the setting > help > find the right questions > contact the support via chat> wait for 20 minutes to talk to someone > and they might be able to cancel your order. I feel like the solution can be much more simple than that. I bet you know by now. Maybe let’s add the cancellation feature?
Foodpanda can add as many conditions as they want. For example, don’t allow cancellation after a restaurant is already preparing your order. With this much data point in their hand, they know the triggers and conditions that make sense.
Error message
I really wish I can tap into Foodpanda funnel analysis tools. Because as a somewhat techie person, the struggles trying to navigate around the Foodpanda app is real. At signup, it took me 6 days with the customer support just to figure out why the SMS OTP was not working. And it was me that figured out the reason, which was because I have this number registered in another country already. I mean, my suggestion is easy, look at the log, find out the error cases, and have the error message for each case. If this error message in the screen below was “this number is already registered”, or had there been an error when I entered the phone number at first, it would have been 30 seconds of creating an account, not 6 days.
Contacting the drivers
Let me put it this way, all other services in the market allow you to contact your driver. It could be raining so hard that you might want to tell the driver that it’s okay to wait. It could be that you want to ask not to get plastic utensils. It could be that you want to tell the driver more detailed instructions on your delivery address. Foodpanda already has the chat system in place and it could be used for this purpose as well. Or it could be as simple as having an option to call your driver on the phone just like Lineman or Grab (the competitors) have. This could solve a lot of issues with miscommunication and human error as well as decreasing costs for customer support.
Language
This last section is such a small thing that I believe could make a big impact on funnel optimization. It’s a language setting. With the current setup, if the app is default in the language you don’t understand, there’s like a 3% chance you will navigate to the language setting screen. Let’s see the screenshot below.
This means if you don’t read Thai, you would really have no option but to contact “Help Center” since it’s the only thing in English you could understand. You might ask your friend or even just give up.
Besides an automated fix by having your app detecting the browser or device language, I think simply adding the right icon to the language setting would be a big help. Use a universal icon that anyone will understand. Also, please be reminded that using a flag is not a great idea. Language is sensitive and one language can be used in many countries. Check out the screenshot below and you might find out it’s a lot easier to navigate now. (I also changed the language to be English so you can read the rest)
Don’t get me wrong. I’ll probably still keep using Foodpanda, and all of the food delivery services. It’s really a great alternative when you don’t have time to cook, and don’t want to go through traffic on a rainy day in a city. There’s no personal emotion here (don’t ask me when I’m hungry and waiting for food though). But I really believe that as a user or a human being, if we can start giving genuine constructive feedback to each other instead of complaining or giving up, things will have a chance to get better and the world would be such a better place.
Don’t you agree? :)
Looking for UX writers? Check out my website :)
