Chp 687. Moving from Zomato to Swiggy

[EDIT: Zomato responded to this post the very next day! Once you have read this, please read this follow-up post]



Yeah. A pretty bold headline. Like it's ever gonna make any impact on either Zomato or Swiggy at all, lolz.

Two giant food delivery companies, both having raised more than $150 Mn each, with a valuation of $1.4 Bn for Zomato and $1.2 Bn for Swiggy (if the deal with Alibaba comes through), will surely not be affected in any way because one random hungry Mizo working in Pune decided to order his morning Masala dosa from Swiggy rather than Zomato. :D

(this is where Luis Fonsi suddenly appears on the scene and sings - INSIGNIFICANTO) :P

But regardless of that, the topic of whether Zomato or Swiggy is better had always been regularly discussed among my group of friends and fellow foodies. Nobody talks about Food Panda anymore, lolz. Food Panda is pretty much like Gendry who rowed his boat and was never seen or heard of again (until the latest season).

Saying Zomato is better or worse than Swiggy is subjective. Their service differs not just from city to city but from locality to locality within the same city. I've had bad experiences with both, and many great experiences with both as well. Also, most of the bad reviews are about a particular restaurant's food quality, which has nothing to do with Zomato or Swiggy.

I think I have enough street cred to talk about my experience with Zomato because as of today, 29th November 2017, I have placed exactly 575 orders using their app.

Ok I am just a level 1 Foodie because I don't write food reviews or upload pictures on Zomato, I do that on my blog instead, as you can see from my previous post or the "Adventures of Tubby" series.

To me, UI (user interface) is a very important criterion for a good app, probably because of my digital advertising and web design background. I. JUST. CANNOT. DIGEST. an app with horrible UI design.

Back in 2012-13 when all these food ordering apps started popping up, we were using TinyOwl to order food. I remember Food Panda and Zomato had clunky UI and so I never used them. And then came Faasos who had this really clean UI and it became my regular food ordering app. I even became an ICU member (Intensive Chicken User).

Thank you @faasos for the ICU (Intensive Chicken User) badge and free rolls coupons! :D #faasosspeak pic.twitter.com/9CQ1Lq3Y

— Kima (@Mizohican) January 18, 2013

It was in 2015 that Zomato launched a separate app solely for ordering food, and their new sleek UI design and UX completely swept me off my feet, and I have been on Zomato ever since. But now, I started using Swiggy more regularly. Here are my personal comparisons between Zomato and Swiggy and why I decided to switch loyalty.

1. DELIVERY TIME

I think we all know the main difference between Zomato and Swiggy. Through Zomato, you can order food from a list of restaurants they have tied up with, and the restaurant will deliver your order to your address. Swiggy on the other hand has its own fleet of delivery boys who personally go to the restaurant and deliver your order to your location.

Because of this, Swiggy has a lesser average delivery time. Now, I am not finicky about delivery time, I don't mind if my order is late by 10-20 minutes, but there had been a couple of times when my Zomato order took more than an hour beyond the estimated delivery time. Earlier, Zomato used to give me free Zomato credits whenever that happened, so I didn't mind much, but lately, all they gave me was their "apology", and that kinda left a bad taste in my mouth, especially since I am such a regular customer.

Zomato 0 : 1 Swiggy

2. MINIMUM ORDER

This is another USP of Swiggy. No minimum order amount. Probably works well with the student community. As for me, this really doesn't matter because my Zomato order always exceeds the minimum amount, lolz. Yeah, I love food :P So this is a draw for both.

Zomato 1 : 2 Swiggy

3. COST AND OFFERS

This is another sector me and my jobless colleagues at work tried to research on. We compared the cost of the same dish from the same restaurant (final cost after GST, packaging and delivery charges) taking a sample space of around 20 restaurants, and eventually came to the conclusion that it is inconsistent. Some restaurants were a bit cheaper at Zomato, while others were a bit cheaper at Swiggy. So again, it's a draw.

Zomato 2 : 3 Swiggy

4. SPECIAL TREATS

Zomato wins hands down in this sector. It costs just 250 bucks annually to subscribe to this and you get free desserts from selected outlets. For a regular customer, this is an extremely good offer. Looking at Swiggy to reciprocate this :)

Zomato 3 : 3 Swiggy

5. EXCLUSIVENESS

There are a few outlets marked as "exclusive" at Zomato. But again, I could see some of those so called Zomato exclusive restaurants at Swiggy as well, lewlz. Maybe those restaurants are breaking an agreement they signed with Zomato, I don't know, but they are definitely not that exclusive. Also there had been many times when I ordered from Zomato and the restaurant delivered the food with a Swiggy or Food Panda packaging :D Overall, Swiggy covers a much larger base here in Koregaon Park and Kalyani Nagar, Pune, with many restaurants available at Swiggy that aren't at Zomato. Even though this is subjective and may not be like that at other locations, I give this round to Swiggy.

Zomato 3 : 4 Swiggy

6. CUSTOMER SERVICE

This is where Zomato shines. They have a very reliable customer service feature who promptly responds to all my queries or complaints. I have read some reviews saying Zomato customer service is bad, but frankly for me, I have never experienced that. Maybe it's because I have 500+ orders and hence treated differently by a senior staff, I don't know, but I am extremely satisfied with their customer service.

Swiggy on the other hand… ooh boy… So when I first started using Swiggy, it was a long time ago when they had tied up with Tapzo app. I registered from Tapzo back then. Years later, I installed the Swiggy app on my phone, and somehow my number was still registered, and my name was automatically saved as "TAPZO USER". I couldn't change it and requested their customer service to change it many times. Finally on my fourth or fifth request, they changed my name. But apparently that changed only on my device. On the delivery boy's device, my name is still "TAPZO USER" as of today, which always creates confusion when I order from office.

Zomato 4 : 4 Swiggy

7. ORDER TRACKING

I love Swiggy for this. If you're just jobless and eagerly waiting for your order to arrive, sometimes it feels good to be preoccupied by just watching the small Swiggy scooter move towards your location, pretty much like how you can track your Ola or Uber ride. Zomato on the other hand, delivers very randomly. Sometimes I receive my order 30 minutes late, and sometimes 30 minutes early! (which may be good, except I order from office and there are times when I'm stuck in a meeting and I order lunch, planning the time so that the ETA of food coincides with the end of the meeting).

Zomato 4 : 5 Swiggy

8. PAST ORDERS

Zomato shows how many orders I have placed through their app till today, as you can see from the image on this post. Swiggy doesn't have that feature. And hell no I'm not gonna freaking count all my past orders manually one by one. Ain't nobody got time for dat! Also, the lastest Zomato app update shows your past order from each restaurant, a feature I so badly needed.

Zomato 5 : 5 Swiggy

9. UI Design

As I mentioned earlier, Zomato blew me away with their UI design. But soon Swiggy came with an even better UI, where one can see images of some of the dishes served. That was when I slowly started using Swiggy more. In the latest update, Zomato too has this feature. In fact, the latest Zomato app UI design is almost a xerox copy of Swiggy. For that, I'm gonna give this round to Swiggy.

Zomato 5 : 6 Swiggy

10. BEVERAGES

For some strange reasons, most of the restaurants don't serve beverages through Swiggy, but the same restaurants do from Zomato. Also, there are still a number of bugs on Swiggy. For example, one of my favorite South Indian restaurants on Swiggy is Madras Coffee House (which isn't there on Zomato). From the Swiggy app, I cannot select any beverages including filter coffee, but at the checkout page, it asks me if there are any extra things I want to add, like filter coffee. From THERE only can I select filter coffee, lolz.

Zomato 6 : 6 Swiggy

It may seem like a draw, but Zomato won on most of the points that really matter, and this may look like a big win for Zomato, EXCEPT for one very important reason, in fact the most important reason of all on why I have migrated to Swiggy from Zomato –

11. DOORSTEP DELIVERY

THIS is the reason why Swiggy has won me over, why I hardly order from Zomato anymore. From the 500+ orders that I have placed through Zomato, at least 70% are from office. I work at a large Business Center, where other floors are occupied by other companies as well. Hence, entry is very strict and we have to show our IDs to the security at the gate before entering the premises.

Now being a foodie, I love experimenting and ordering from different restaurants. Most of these restaurants from Zomato send their delivery boys who DO NOT have proper IDs with them. And so I have to leave my office floor and go down 16 floors and walk all the way outside to the main gate to collect my food and then return to my office. The four elevators are also quite busy at this time as it is lunch hour and employees from different companies are going up or down to the 7th and 10th floors where the two common cafeterias are located.

So yeah, you can feel my frustration, right? But when it comes to Swiggy, all their delivery boys have proper IDs and they come deliver my lunch right at my office floor without me having to go anywhere.

That is why I have started using Swiggy more regularly. All my friends in office (and I'm sure the people from the other companies in our building) have all switched to Swiggy as well because of this. This is something Zomato needs to fix asap, otherwise they're just going to keep losing more and more loyal customers.

Some of you might consider this last point trivial, like, "Hey Kima, why don't you just suck it up and walk to the main gate to collect your lunch?" but hey, at the end of the day, I'm spending my hard-earned money for a "service", and when a competition is offering me a much better and more convenient service, I have the total freedom to shift to that new service, right? :) Unless of course you're generous enough to pay for my Zomato lunch every day, then I surely don't mind walking outside to collect my food :P

If Zomato fixes this issue (maybe instruct all their affiliated restaurants to have their delivery boys carry proper IDs, or at least mention in the app which restaurants have delivery boys with ID cards), I think a lot of us will get back to using it…

So what about you? Which is your current favorite food ordering app, Zomato or Swiggy?