Zomato ups the game with chat

Photo credit: femme run

Zomato, a restaurant finding and food-delivery app, today said it has added an in-app chat feature that will let customers talk to the Zomato team. This essentially means customers do not have to get on annoying phone calls trying to figure out where their food order vanished.

Zomato started its online ordering feature almost seven months back, as rivals like FoodPanda, Swiggy, and TinyOwl started tempting customers with in-app orders. In India, this is an especially helpful feature, because of high call-drop rates and patchy coverage even in bustling metros. But while ordering online has become the norm, India’s traffic snarls and other logistics issues often mean irate customers have to eventually pick up the phone to follow up on their orders.

Zomato is now upping the ante with the chat feature, which is currently in a beta stage. When Tech in Asia tried it out, response came within seconds.

“With this update, we’ve focused on improving and simplifying the communication flow between users and Zomato during the order process. We aim to simplify the online ordering process and give users the option of a faster, more efficient, and reliable way of getting food delivered,” said Tanmay Saksena, Zomato’s global head of online business ordering.

The feature is now available in India and the UAE, where customers can track their orders, get information on promos, cancel orders and check for money matters like refunds.