For on-demand delivery services, it becomes very hard to balance not annoying customers by calling them for delivery updates vs making sure they know the delivery has happened.

Say you are Licious. You might deliver the order in the next 2 hours or the next day. If you are delivering in the next 2 hours, the customer might keep the order tracking screen open, and the delivery will be top in mind. So if the delivery gets delayed or the order confirmation does not come, the customer will proactively call the delivery person for an update. But if it is the next day and there is a delivery slot it is far harder to track. Will the delivery be made at the beginning or end of the slot? And since it is meat is very important that the items are brought inside quickly and kept in the freezer.

For my last few orders, I have always found the delivery confirmation details to be wrong. The delivery person never calls. And my chicken order is generally outside with the security guards till I remember that there was an order.

Bangalore is still a cold place, but I wonder what if this was Chennai.

As every company becomes a super app and delivers across multiple verticals it becomes even more important that the delivery experience is tailored to the item being ordered. If you were ordering an Uber, you will want the driver to just arrive at the pickup spot with minimal communication. If it was food you would probably be okay with good tracking + a delivery message/push. If it is the meat you would probably want to make sure the customer knows it is lying at the gate and it will get spoilt if it does not get picked up soon.

Having different SOPs is needed. Teaching the nuances is key.

This is not a rant. Amazon, Swiggy, Uber will all do the same things eventually. Supply is commoditized and leveraged to do N different tasks. Designing a delivery experience suited for different use cases will be the key.