Dfaq with Zomato! - Part 1

They say you should keep your friends close, but your enemy's closer! Especially true - when you're out to run an empire! i.e.: Case and point - Zomato

Off late, the battle between Zomato and Swiggy has been steaming up. 

They were in talks on merger a while back but my best guess is, it was an attempt to look at each other's books and processes. After all, if Zomato is the King of the North, Swiggy is the Empress of the South. (and heck women have always proven to be more efficient rulers throughout history! But more on that later)

I'm a long-standing user of Zomato. Probably a 'whale' amongst users; like they say while defining mobile gaming user type. But its far more out of necessity than out of actually liking the app now. Its become an evil I cant do without. At least for the time being.

As an outsider, even a customer with one eye closed (looking at any form of digital screen connected to the internet) can tell that both Zomato and Swiggy have up the ante on new user acquisition. And from the looks of it, Swiggy is dominating this fight right now. 

But lots of users and F&B brands seem to suddenly be favouring Swiggy in North India. And Zomato's greatest weakness right now is not being able to address their concerns. i.e.: the concerns of its biggest stakeholders - its existing users!

To my understanding, either their brand team is trying to do everything at once, (like trying to eat all the french fries, the burger and drink the entire soda can in one big gulp) without any prioritization of agendas or clear focus. 

Whatever be the case, if they continue this way, they will definitely be going down as a case study in Indian business history soon; as 'The leader who lost the right to its opinion holders'.

No, I'm not going to give any 'gyaan' on what they can do better (no one is paying me for it), but I'll like to gently point out notorious things that they are doing off late; 

1. They have taught their CRM team the art of lying and defending their position instead of addressing customer issues. 

- CRM team responses are also very fake and repetitive (like banging your head against the wall an expecting a different outcome each time)

- Their social media team is far more receptive than their CRM and PR team; post something on Twitter to the founder and people get in touch with you way faster. (even if they don't take adequate action ahead of that) 

- The PR team or whoever the hell it is sending sorry packages to customers, which doesn't even care if the wrong sorry note is sent to the wrong customer.

2. They decided to take on new challenges, i.e.: Zomato delivery, and now they are causing business losses to F&B owners. 

- Reducing delivery radius so that they can deliver food quicker

- Quietly switching restaurant ordering off when they don't have staff in an area to pick up delivery in a certain area

- Creating new features like kitchen hygiene ranking and asking F&B partners for money to rank high up in them for a year. 

3. Not being intuitive enough in developing and launching new features on the app like they used to. 

- I'm not able to use the rating filters under subcategories 

- I'm not able to find half the items as they haven't been tagged to restaurants 

4. Doing dumb things like turning the app clour blue for people who pay them for Zoamto Gold service where all they do is highlight the BOGO offers. 

- Have they taken a look at their selves in the mirror off late? I think not. Plus they haven't been looking at what other competitors have been doing either. 

- Food Talk India - is able to partner with brands and curate interactive events that Zomato hasn't been able to do. 

- Big F and Food talk India have been giving far better in restaurant dining offers than Zomato by a MILE! Why the heck will I avail a BOGO on a single food dish at a restaurant when I can opt for 15 - 20% off on entire bill or 1 + 1 on the buffet instead? 

I'm not done yet. Part 2 coming soon.