Home delivery-led pizza brand Domino’s advertises ‘drive and pick’ service

Launched in October last year, the service is currently live in 1,145 Domino’s stores across India. The brand’s CMO Sandeep Anand talks about it in detail.

Domino’s, which promises home delivery in 30 minutes, is building on its newly introduced ‘drive and pick’ service in its latest communication. Launched in October last year, the service allows customers to opt for the orders to be delivered to their vehicle parked at the designated pick up spot outside the Domino’s store.

Exclusively available on the Domino’s app, to avail the service, the customers need to select ‘Takeaway’ option on the app and choose their preferred pick up store. After entering their vehicle details, orders can be placed to be picked up in next 15 minutes.

Domino’s also provides advance order service, if the customers wish to pick up their orders later. For ‘pick later’ orders, the store starts to prepare the order 15 minutes before the scheduled pick up time.

Once the order is placed on the app, the track order screen gives directions to the pick up point - usually located outside the restaurant, or close to the entry point of the mall, in case the chosen store is located in a shopping complex. Upon arrival at the designated pick up spot, customers are to click on the ‘I am here’ button on the app. The order is then delivered to them by a Domino’s delivery executive.

There is no delivery fee, and Domino’s promises zero contact delivery as well as waiting time.

The service is currently available at almost all Domino’s restaurants across India. However, a few Domino’s outlets that are located on a higher floor in a food court of a mall or an office complex, where a convenient parking spot could not be defined for the customers, had to be exempted because of the zero waiting time, says Sandeep Anand, chief marketing officer, Domino's at Jubilant FoodWorks. At present, 1,145 Domino’s restaurants across India provide the service.

Anand says that the service, which was introduced after Domino’s saw a spike in takeaway orders post the COVID outbreak, is a natural extension for the brand. “When COVID hit, people had the fear of stepping out and going to the outlets to pick up their orders. They wanted to avoid contact as much as possible. This was when we introduced the zero contact delivery on all the channels,” he says.

As an additional precautionary measure to ensure the safety of both the customers and the delivery staff, Jubilant FoodWorks introduced zero contact delivery in all 1,325 Domino's restaurants across the country in March 2020. Domino's uses its own executives to deliver orders placed on any delivery partner app, like Zomato or Swiggy.

On how the concept was born, Anand says, “It was around June-July last year, when the stores opened up, that we saw a big rise in the takeaway part of our business... We asked ourselves, what could be a more convenient option for the consumers than coming inside the store to pick up their orders. We looked at both the Indian and international markets... that is how the concept was born.”

Internationally, Domino's has ‘car park delivery’, a service where the order is delivered to a customer’s car parked in the brand’s parking area. Anand points out that the company customised the name to ‘drive and pick’ to suit the Indian market.

“Car parks are not a very common terminology in India. The parking here is scattered. Hence, we tested 2-3 options to check which one resonates best in this market. We needed to see which would be the most intuitive name for the consumers to understand what we are offering. As a result, we went ahead with a nomenclature different from what Domino’s follows globally,” he shares with afaqs!.

The service, Anand mentions, is for consumers who are on the move and prefer to pick up their order to take back home. He mentions there isn’t a target group that prefers to eat while on the move. The service is for those consumers who seek value based on the current trends. “While most prefer to take the orders back to their home for consumption, some may even use the service for out of home consumption,” he tells us.

In the past four months, Domino’s has recorded its high frequency users opting for the service more than others. Anand refers to them as ‘early adopters’.

Anand states that all Domino’s store employees have undergone training for the new service. The team is monitored for zero contact delivery as well. To ensure the same, when a guest marks ‘I am here’ at the time of pick up, the delivery executive, who is dressed in a branded vest/jacket, walks to the pre-defined pick up point with a stool and the order. The order is placed on the stool for the customer to pick up to avoid any direct contact between the two (the consumer and the executive).

In the case of cash on delivery, a cup with the bill is placed on the same stool and the customer can put money in it.

A similar ‘drive-thru’ service in India is also provided by fast food company McDonald’s and coffee house Starbucks.

According to Anand, ‘drive and pick’ is a fairly new concept in the Indian market, and Domino’s wants to create awareness about it and educate its customers. What communication plans does the brand have in pipeline for the service? “The biggest asset we are going to use is our own app, which is like our property to generate awareness. When you open the app, you are presented with a big banner about the service... We are also going to use TV and digital media to talk about it,” Anand says.

The brand has released two TVCs, conceptualised by FCB India, for the service so far.

Anand believes that some new consumer behaviour trends like social distancing will continue, even in the post-COVID world. And thus, he says, the convenience of ‘drive and pick’ service will continue in the times to come. “It may not be a very big segment as of now, but we will continue to build on it. We will continue to invest in making people aware of the benefits of the service…,” he signs off.