Many factors can burn through profit. Rising gas prices, insurance, driver training, and the challenges of managing staff while they’re behind the wheel are just a few of the issues restaurant managers encounter every day. Delivery operations also have to consider driver safety and liability, as well as new technologies that can impact the delivery business.

More than 83% of pizzerias deliver. At many of those shops, delivery is the primary source of revenue. Yet few outside the delivery market understand the complexity of this business model—and just how difficult it can be to operate an efficient, profitable delivery concept.

Driving Delivery Performance

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RESTAURANT OPERATIONS SERIES

Delivery Efficiency Starts with Driver SchedulingHow many times have you had too many drivers sitting idle in your pizzeria? Or vice versa, how many times have you been so busy that your scheduled drivers just didn’t cut it? The labor and forecasting tools in your point of sale software can help you eliminate nights like these.

An accurate forecast allows you to create next week’s schedule based on historical sales and eliminate the guesswork.

SpeedLine Sales Forecast Totals

Efficient driver scheduling begins with the sales forecast.

Look at historical sales and forecast by hour, and by day part and order type, to determine the number of drivers you need to schedule per shift—and the length of shifts you need to schedule to address peak demand for delivery services.

Timing, Mapping, and ZoningHow far away is your next delivery? How long does it take to get there? Who do you send, and how do your keep track? If you are running a high-volume restaurant with more than two drivers, these questions may become hard to answer. Here are some tips to manage delivery dispatch and delivery times.

z Use your point of sale system’s dispatch system. A well designed dispatch system can sort and track orders from beginning to end – from assigning deliveries to flagging late orders and overdue drivers.

z Map out delivery zones. In order to apply delivery charges and calculate delivery times accurately, the POS needs to understand your delivery area and zones where you may apply different delivery fees or limit delivery to certain hours. A modern pizza POS lets you map out zones based on a variety of options, including drive time from the store. The zones allow the system to quote accurate delivery times for every order. They can also ensure that delivery fees are consistent within a zone, while covering your actual delivery costs.

z Use route mapping software. Getting orders out the door efficiently is only half the battle. Drivers also need to make their way quickly and safely to the delivery destination. Live, online maps like those provided by SpeedLine LiveMaps, and driver directions printed or sent to your driver’s smartphones, make this happen.

z Import a street database into the POS. This speeds new customer entry, ensures accurate addresses for mailing, eliminates losses to fake orders, and can increase driver safety. When a customer calls and tries to give you an address that does not exist, the computer alerts the order-taker.

SpeedLine Sales Forecast Hourly

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Systemizing Efficiency at the Dispatch StationA system that allows you to customize the information on the dispatch screen can improve order flow and boost efficiency—simply by putting the right information in front of your drivers, managers, and expeditors at the right time.

The SpeedLine LiveMaps visual dispatch system, for example, lets you select orders directly from a map, and customizable pushins let you decide how much information to show for each delivery. Both the map and the dispatch screen highlight orders nearing dispatch time limits you set, and the dispatch screen information and icons can be changed to fit each pizzeria owner’s unique operation. Highlight deliveries to restricted zones, or tally side dishes to prevent drivers from leaving items behind. Gauge at a glance whether a delivery is ready to go and check that the order is filled accurately before the driver leaves.

Web and Mobile OrderingWeb and mobile ordering can result in more orders, higher average ticket prices, and a growing customer base. Integrated directly into the POS system, web ordering also allows restaurants to handle more orders without adding order entry staff. Customers volunteer accurate address and contact information—tremendously valuable for targeted marketing campaigns—and their online orders tend to be more accurate than phone orders, or faxed web orders that staff later re-enter into a non-integrated POS.

At Jet’s Pizza, delivery increased from 40 percent of sales to 60 percent following the integration of their web ordering site to the POS, and the average delivery ticket for web orders is $2 higher than their typical phone order.

“With SpeedLine in our stores, our delivery times are significantly shorter, and order entry is faster,” explains Jet’s Pizza vice president of marketing John Jetts. “The seamless online ordering integration between SpeedLine, our web ordering partner, and our restaurants is driving revenue.”

Case Study: An Extra $40K per Year in Delivery Fees

“Before we installed our SpeedLine POS, we would guess where our customers lived based on our knowledge of the area,” explains Diana, “and then charge them something we thought would work. But fees changed all the time. When we installed [it], we set up delivery zones and charges in the computer. All we have to do is press Delivery, and the computer charges the right amount. Customers are happy because they do not get overcharged. And we’re ecstatic because we’re collecting an extra $40K a year in delivery fees.”

– Diana Cline, Diana’s Cucina & Lounge

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In this sample daily snapshot, you can see detailed numbers for each delivery order:

z Dispatch Minutes: The time it takes for your pizzas to be called in, baked, and sent out the door. If your dispatch minutes are abnormally long, investigate! Is there a problem in the kitchen, or was it just very busy?

z Delivery Minutes: The amount of time it takes from the time the order is called in to when the customer has the pizza in hand.

z Early Minutes/Late Minutes: Are your pies getting into customers’ hands fresh and hot? If your deliveries are late, evaluate whether there’s a problem with quoted delivery times or staffing, or if your drivers are making unscheduled detours.

Benchmarks vary from one restaurant to another, but a metric such as Quoted Time + 5 Minutes may indicate issues with staffing, kitchen efficiency or driver performance.

Delivery MetricsMost delivery operations track a few critical performance indicators:

z Delivery time is a key factor in customer satisfaction, with late deliveries an obvious indicator of problems—either with scheduling, kitchen efficiency, or driver performance.

z Out the door time is a key measure of efficiency in the kitchen. If it’s consistently high, and the average wait time between runs is also up, you may need additional prep staff or an extra packaging station.

z The overall number of deliveries per hour is a key factor in scheduling for future shifts.

A daily snapshot view of deliveries can tell you a great deal about delivery efficiency:

Look at daily summary numbers to identify problems or areas for improvement:

Improving Delivery EfficiencyCross-training

Improving delivery efficiency can be as simple as cross-training drivers to handle other tasks in the kitchen while they wait for the next delivery order.

This may give you more flexibility to schedule enough drivers to handle peak demand without breaking your overall labor budget.

And with a point of sale system such as SpeedLine that can track when drivers are out on a delivery and assign an alternate pay rate, restaurants can take advantage of labor code in most states that allows them to pay drivers the lower tipped minimum wage while they are on deliveries.

Set Controls on the Dispatch Functions

Drivers are motivated to earn tips—which creates a desire to take as many orders as possible each trip, and each shift.

In some cases, they may also try to avoid taking late orders that may not result in a tip.

The result? When you have one driver taking four orders at a time, someone’s pizza is bound to be cold. That late order that gets bypassed in favor of a fresh one ends up even later.

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Busy delivery operations use a number of controls to counter this natural tendency:

z Assign an expeditor to handle all dispatch functions: including assigning tickets to drivers and cashing out drivers on return.

z Set controls to limit access to the Dispatch screen, and force drivers to cash out after every run if you wish. Combined with finger print sensors for system access, this provides a great deal of control over most delivery functions.

Both those methods, however, can sometimes be a burden on operations during peak times. One chain district manager notes that because stores use POS controls to limit drivers to two orders per run, on a busy night, when no one is available to cash him out after a run, a driver may resort to taking an order without dispatching it. When he returns after that run, he still has to cash out the first delivery, dispatch and immediately return and cash out the second. As a result, the reporting for that shift is skewed.

z To avoid situations like this, many restaurants choose either to lock down dispatching to an expeditor, or to manage performance through tracking and coaching. Because the POS tracks every action on every transaction by employee, skewed results like these for a driver tell the story pretty clearly.

Who’s Cheating?Certain employees will always try to cheat the system.

“Some drivers feel it’s okay to ‘snake’ deliveries from other drivers,” comments Two Guys Pizza owner Cory Medd, and find creative ways to do it. Likewise, some managers cheat the system to make their numbers look better. Security controls can block much of this – but to be certain that your numbers are an accurate reflection of what’s really happening in the restaurant, a closer look at the driver reports is essential. Look beyond the store metrics to your drivers’ delivery detail for a shift:

z Any deliveries returned in lightning speed? Medd noted one common cheat: drivers assigning an order to themselves, immediately “returning” themselves, and taking two more pies to get around the store’s two-order delivery limit.

z Are your out-the-door times in line from one driver to the next? Some managers pressure drivers to assign orders to themselves early—sometimes even before the pizza is out of the oven—to meet a tough OTD Time metric.

Reports showing these types of problems provide documentation for coaching or disciplinary action.

Compare the number of deliveries, out the door times, wait time between runs, and credits applied after delivery. Note differences among drivers, and compare each with the store averages for the night.

The POS may also flag certain indicators, such as excessive credits applied after the order is saved, to alert management to potential driver theft issues.

Managing Individual Driver Performance

Dive deeper into delivery metrics to look at individual driver performance.

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCESFIND OUT MORE

Limiting LiabilityLack of insurance can become a major liability if one of your drivers gets into an accident on the road. Make sure drivers are adequately insured and driving with valid licenses. Take the time to record this information and check it regularly.

Automation limits risk: SpeedLine POS tracks license and insurance information, and warns the manager when a driver’s license or insurance is about to expire.

In a business with tight profit margins, efficiency is the key to profit. Effective controls over dispatching and driver performance are critical.

By setting up your delivery scheduling and systems correctly, you give drivers the tools to meet performance goals. The reporting capabilities in your point of sale system give your restaurant managers the information to coach performance and hold staff accountable.

1. Forecast accurately.

2. Schedule drivers accordingly.

3. Set controls on dispatching and driver cashouts.

4. Track driver and overall delivery performance throughout every shift.

If you haven’t already tapped into online and mobile ordering to drive delivery and catering sales, start now.

Finally, don’t spread yourself too thin. Leverage your point of sale system to manage every component of a successful delivery operation.

Bring it all together

The leading provider of innovative solutions for pizza point of sale, SpeedLine provides POS and enterprise management solutions for pizza and delivery, quick service, and multi-concept restaurant chains. For more information, or to arrange a free demonstration, call toll-free 888-400-9185 or email info@speedlinesolutions.com.

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