​Foodora’s appetite for customer engagement

Foodoora’s CMO, Charlotte Rijkenberg

In the past 12 months, the marketing team at global food delivery company, foodora, has made leaps and bounds in its efforts to attract and retain a growing customer base thanks to a rebrand, customer advocacy activities and a dedicated customer happiness team.

Suppertime announced its rebrand to foodora in Australia in March. Its German-based parent company was already trading under the brand in 10 countries.

“We felt that being part of a global brand identity would enable us to hugely improve our platform,” foodora’s Australian marketing chief, Charlotte Rijkenberg told CMO. “We’d be able to launch our app and provide an even better customer experience.

“Another reason we rebranded was the fact that we wanted to extend our delivery service and offer more than just dinner. Thanks to the rebrand we now deliver lunch, and on the weekends we are open from 10am-10pm, so customers can order in for a relaxed brunch as well.”

To date, foodora has 850 partner restaurants and claims strong month-to-month order growth. Its cyclists have covered a full 295,000 km globally this year, and in Australia they have covered 38,062 km.

According to Rijkenberg, the brand has also seen a fresh wave of customer loyalty and referral initiatives in an effort to boost engagement. The latest was a refer-a-friend program, which was tested successfully earlier this year.

“We also organise competitions and run special campaigns to engage with our customers on a regular basis - and we'll try to build on this in the next couple of months,” she said. “But above all, we’re about providing outstanding service and great food that makes our customers come back to us, and that will always be our first priority.”

The concept of customers using an app or website to order food that’s delivered straight to a designated location is not new, and there are more players in the market that ever before. To stand out from the crowd, Rijkenberg highlighted foodora focuses on three primary goals: To provide premium customer service, maintain great restaurant partnerships and embrace a culture of innovative marketing.

“Customer service is very important to us and we have built a great customer happiness team who are based in Sydney,” she said. “I think having a local team is so important, I would never off-shore this part of our business. It is important we can provide our customers with great customer service, with a personal touch.”

Because foodora is not a transactional platform, the company works closely together with restaurants to provide them with more than just a tool to do home-deliveries.

“It is also about providing the right advice on their menus, and we have an ex-chef working for us, who can help our restaurants with creating and improving their home-delivery menu,” Rijkenberg continued. “We also work closely together on campaigns and about growing their business with home delivery.”

From a marketing perspective, Rijkenberg claimed her team strives to be innovative in its tone-of-voice and campaigns.

“I always feel challenged to look for new ways to surprise our customers and bring something different to the table,” she said. “Recent examples include running a cheeky campaign with Messina & Chill, a charitable partnership with OzHarvest, and even creating the first pop-up restaurant without a kitchen experience in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.”

Of course any new rebranding initiative is not without its challengers, and Rijkenberg said foodora was faced with the task of organising an operational migration to move all its restaurant partners to a new platform quickly.

“With just one month to do everything it was definitely challenging, however, the whole team worked together to make it work,” she said. “If in the end you can provide a better product and service to your customers and partners, it is well worth it.”

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