Thanks to delivery firms such as Wolt, locals can order all kinds of dishes to their doorstep from scores of restaurants across the city – and kitchen staff can keep their jobs. We speak to Alexandra Juhász, marketing manager of Wolt, about coping with the growing demand and how they’re dealing with safe delivery.
We Love Budapest: How much have orders increased in recent days, and how much growth are you expecting in the upcoming weeks?
Alexandra Juhász: The demand from the restaurant side has drastically increased, and we are expecting this tendency to continue. There is also a change in the number of orders, but not as intense – we are counting with an increase of orders in the upcoming weeks, depending on how long people’s home inventories last.
WLB: Potentially, how many more restaurants can you include into the system?
AJ: Any amount operating within our transportation parameters, but we are also thinking about expansion, so we can help even more people. Everything is moving very quickly now but we were able to digitalise everything. Restaurants are also picking up the pace as we do whatever we need to do.
WLB: Which kind of criteria do new restaurants have to meet?
AJ: We are trying to maintain Wolt’s quality standards in terms of new restaurants as well, to prevent any disappointment from our customers, but there have been no issues with this so far. The new arrivals are excellent, quality restaurants, who have faced reduced traffic due to the epidemic and are now ready to deliver. We always appreciate those who can prepare and provide a full menu with pictures, as things can go a lot faster that way. Basically, within a few hours of them getting in touch, delivery can begin.
WLB: How can you ensure that restaurants abide by the heightened regulations?
AJ: All we can do is ask the restaurants to follow the rules, but our experience is that all of them see ensuring safety and good hygiene as a personal responsibility. We also ask them to always close the bags, and arrange a pick-up point for the dispatchers instead of personally handing over the deliveries in restaurants.
Contactless delivery mainly applies to the interaction between consumers and dispatchers. Contactless delivery can be chosen upon purchase, and the customers can request where the food should be put. The Wolt app displays the entire process of the delivery, you can see where your order is and when it will arrive. Up until now, we have only recommended that people use this function, but now it is the default, and we ask everyone to only choose direct handing-over.
Check out Wolt in English here.
