CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) IN ZOMATO AND SWIGGY

1. Introduction

SWIGGY:

Swiggy came into existence in the year 2014 when two BITS Pilani graduates, Sriharsha Majety and
Nandan Reddy came up with the concept ‘Hyper local food delivery’. They get acquainted with Rahul
Jaimini, who renewed this vision with a principle site. In August 2014, Swiggy started activities by
joining a couple of Restaurants in the city Koramangala in Bengaluru. Following that, they started
delivering food to their clients in just 40 minutes.
Soon after this, in May 2015, Swiggy raised its initial round of financing and came up with the
application. Through this innovative app, one could get incredible food right to their doorstep and
evolve their living standard.

ZOMATO:

The story of Zomato started in the office of Bain and Company in Delhi. Depinder and Pankaj are the
founders of ‘Zomato’. They saw people standing in a queue at lunchtime and gave the order for their
food when their turn came.There they got an idea which became an introduction to ‘Zomato’.
At first, they started scanning all the menu items of the restaurant and listed them on their internet
website “foodiebay.com". Later on, after seeing a huge traffic on their website, they decided to launch
their website to the public.
By now this wasn’t just confined to their office. Everyone else around their neighbourhood also started
using the website. They started expanding this idea into other big cities including Mumbai, Kolkata and
Bangalore.
Many people started using their website to know about the best restaurants around them. It was the
interest from people that encouraged both the founders to expand this idea. Then the idea of changing
the name of website struck their minds. Hence came the word ‘Zomato’.
The founders then wanted to make life a lot easier for their users and hence they developed a mobile
application. With this, Zomato became India’s most preferred website for ordering food.

2. CRM Practices used by Zomato and Swiggy

ZOMATO:

Zomato keeps a record of the following things:

1. Consumer contact details
2. Rate of visits
3. Choices on meals
4. Average pay per visit

When connected to the restaurant’s point of commerce software, this data can provide valuable reports
and analysis on:
1. Most popular food items
2. items that are not marketing
3. Busiest times/nights and help identify the reasons why.
4. If it is a nationally franchised or chain of restaurants, it can provide the franchise owner with data on
which regions are doing better than others.

There are five ways by which Zomato’s CRM initiative can turn around the customer chain:
- It can help build a consumer database.
- It can use artificial intelligence to learn from accessible data to make suggestions based on company
manners. In this way, the system constantly and automatically updates.
- It gathers information and helps the eatery owners get to know their consumer.
- This becomes the basis for communication with the customer, helps track customer trends and feeds
into marketing plans.
- It also establishes a relationship with the customer, which is one of the primary goals of an
organisation.

SWIGGY:

There are several ways in which Swiggy has managed to gain a strong customer foundation. One of the
best aspects of Swiggy is its continually changing system of operation which comes to the rescue at one
of the most dynamic periods in history. A step-by-step guide to how Swiggy has managed to attain
ground-breaking results include:

DELIVERY:
Customers are regularly on the lookout for being able to pay the least amount of cash for delivery while
availing their orders at the said time. Punctuality is key with respect to delivery services, especially
food. Along with this, it is also important that your delivery agent be friendly, courteous, and good with
navigation. They end up becoming the face of the company and if they put up a positive and friendly
front, the loyalty of the customer can be obtained automatically. Swiggy is widely known for its
punctuality when it comes to food delivery, along with outstanding delivery agents.

DISCOUNTS:
The Indian audience is perpetually hungry for discounts, and that is a fact. We love to avail discounts
however we can. Most people often visit the same store for a variety of discounts that are offered and
Swiggy has managed to crack that code. Beginning with Swiggy Pop that provides a huge discount on
meals, they also constantly tie-up with restaurants to provide their customers with endless discounts.
There is no dearth of options when it comes to the number of available discounts.

CUSTOMER SERVICE:
Lastly, an active customer service department is the ultimate method in ensuring you can retain your
customer’s loyalty. Swiggy’s approachable and readily available customer service has brought them a
long way. If you have any queries or complaints, they are always happy to help.

3. Implementation and Measurement of CRM strategy in Zomato and Swiggy

ZOMATO:

Zomato engages its customers in a considerable amount of ways.

1. Firstly, it has recognised its target audience (18-35 years) and keeps this audience entertained on
every platform where Zomato is recognised — be it on its website, Facebook, Instagram. It uses
humour, sarcasm, current affairs and trends to keep the audience engaged, so that Zomato resides
in the minds of the customers as “The Funny One” of the many food-delivery organisations available.
This may not directly help the sales, but it does put Zomato at the top in terms of a customer’s
favourite choice. Also, by posting ad campaigns frequently and on many different platforms, Zomato
reminds customers of its presence at every step of the way, so that they get subconsciously familiar
with the company, even when they have not used its services before.
1. Zomato is primarily a food delivery organisation, but it doesn’t just stop there. Delivering food at
doorsteps has already made it one of the many favourites of working professionals, hardworking
students and people who have difficulties cooking for themselves. But it has now also started
providing incentives to people who dine out in restaurants affiliated with Zomato, through the
‘Zomato Pro’ program. It provides the customer with an advantage of receiving their order 15-20%
faster than normal, and also provides a money back guarantee (that is, if customers don’t save twice
the amount they payed for the Zomato Pro subscription, they will get the money back!), which
boosts their outdoor dining experience too.

SWIGGY:

Swiggy is also there in the top food-delivery companies, and it has reached there using many innovative
strategies.

1. Swiggy uses a diversification strategy in choosing its restaurant affiliations. It makes hyperlocal
deliveries possible, which makes it the number one choice for people with an acquired taste.
Whenever a customer thinks, “this restaurant is not too popular, or too fancy, so deliveries won’t be
possible.”, this is when Swiggy swoops in like a hero. It makes even the smallest local restaurants
accessible to its customers, and thus climbs up the ladder in the food-delivery space.

2. If there is one area where Swiggy is the best, it is its quick and speedy delivery. Swiggy was one of
the first companies to introduce live tracking of food-deliveries, and showing estimated delivery
time. Over the course of many years, it has further improved its system, thanks to which it has now
become the most accurate tracking system. This is, of course, a strong suit, but Swiggy also uses this
information to attract new customers. What do customers want, if not food delivered at their
doorsteps, that too, at the shortest possible time! The main focus of its ad campaigns has been its
flash delivery, and there is also a cash-back offer on receiving the delivery later than expected,
which builds trust in the customer towards the company.

4. CRM Software tools used by Zomato and Swiggy

ZOMATO:

CRM Strategy Software Tools

Marketing: Segment, SendGrid, Tumblr,

Entertaining advertising campaigns
WordPress
Analytics: Google Analytics
Zomato Pro’ Incentives
Finance: Spreedly, Square

SWIGGY:

CRM Strategy Software Tools

Ordering from Local Restaurants Crashlytics, Android Wear SDK, EmberJS

Google Cloud Messaging, Google Maps,

Delivery Tracking
New Relic
5. Comparative Assessment of CRM Practices followed by Zomato and Swiggy

Swiggy and Zomato are both on top of the ladder, in terms of success in the food-
delivery space. But surprisingly, there are close to no similarities in the CRM
practices used by them. They are both unique and choose different paths when it
comes to Customer Relationship Management.

1. Zomato puts an enormous amount of effort into SEO. It uses a highly productive strategy to ensure
that you have the most traffic on your website as Zomato takes the top keywords & builds its
own URL from them. 

3. Tapping their customers from around the world is the only goal of their marketing. And to make sure
this thing happens, they use every digital marketing tool. Zomato makes use of funny, trendy,
& current topics to engage their audience because the company knows the audience’s nature.

4. Zomato assures that they remain over the top of their game with their inventive marketing strategy.
Swiggy particularly emphasize on people’s hunger and desire to plan their entire marketing
strategies. The well-known line ‘Craving Something?’ has become kind of compatible to Swiggy!
Swiggy has its own style to engage with their audience. Their social media page has ravishing food
pictures that make people wish for more food! “They have a simple target – people want tasty food,
they will deliver in no time.”

5. Swiggy delivers it faster. The timings displayed on the app are pretty right and the food often
delivered within the given time. Except the bad weather, things have been substantially good with
Swiggy. Zomato, on the other side, show unstable timings. Sometimes there are issues in
understanding the location of the delivery guy marker on the map. In any case, Swiggy wins the race
of delivery department.  

6. Every customer has different requirements. When customers want their food to be delivered fast,
Swiggy can be the best option for them. And, when you are looking for good food at a discounted
price, you cannot ignore Zomato. In addition to this, Zomato is winning with its social media
advertising while Swiggy has left no stone unturned when it comes to TV commercials.   

7. Swiggy lets you place an order in no time without making it necessary to enable location tracking.
The app continues to warn you if you have not chosen location via location tracking feature of your
device. In a nutshell, the entire appearance and working of the app is pretty decent. Zomato, on the
other hand, makes it compulsory to switch on the device location tracker. The best thing about
Zomato is that it covers more areas and localities for their service. 

8. While ordering from Swiggy, it shows options how you want to pay. It is one additional step even if
you set up your Paytm number. The payment flow on Zomato is quite simple, and it saves your last
payment method and sticks to it. If you have already made a payment via Paytm, it will remain the
same and it is way better during the payment time.

6. Suggestions to Enhance CRM Effectiveness in Zomato and Swiggy

1. Zomato and Swiggy already have a loyal customer base, thanks to Zomato Pro and Swiggy Pop.
But customers feel best when they know that the service being provided is undergoing
improvement constantly, so that they don’t face the same problems (if any) in the future. Like
 some other companies, Zomato and Swiggy both should develop surveys, in which they ask the
customer how satisfied they are with their service. Surveys like this must be unlike the already
existing ones -- they should include a variety of questions to ensure satisfaction on all levels, and
they should also be collected at a greater frequency than usual, to stay up to date on all the
potential customer grievances. 

2. The customer base of an organisation is already a community, having the service they use as a
common link. But what if the companies provide a chance for that community to get even closer?
Positive interaction between its customers is something every organisation desires. Since both
Zomato and Swiggy belong to the food industry, they could dedicate a forum, or even a section of
their apps, to an interactive chat group, where all its customers could share their experiences
from different restaurants. People new to the service could take a brief look at the advice
offered there, and get familiar with the services offered. To make this conversation more
credible, people could be attributed a score or a rating based on how many times they order for
using the app, and more the score/rating, more trustworthy would be that person’s advice
regarding the matter. These ratings would also keep the customers interested in the service, and
would encourage them to come back and order more regularly, making it an interesting
competition for the users, and a beneficial system for the organisation.

3. These companies should surely put effort into CRM strategies, but at the end of the day, CRM is
not their only job. They have to take into account all the aspects of running a nation-wide
organisation, which means equally dividing its energy between all its very important tasks.
Therefore, while some of the CRM strategies involve human resources, companies should try to
make as much of its CRM services automated as possible. One example of this, is automated
customer support service. This provides the customer with a prompt solution, all while saving the
time and money of the organisation.

Credits:
Harnehmat Kaur
Bani Kaur
Agamjot Singh
Devyansh Raj
(XI-A)