TCS techie turns Zomato delivery agent. His 6 challenges, including petrol price hike

Srinivasan Jayaraman was in between jobs when he worked as a Zomato delivery agent. (Image credit: Srinivasan Jayaraman/LinkedIn)

Srinivasan Jayaraman recently left his job at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and had a week before joining his next organisation. Yearning to do something beyond learning new skills and spending more time with his family during this break, the Chennai-based software engineer decided to pick up a part-time job as a delivery agent at Zomato.

In just a few days, Jayaraman had a ringside view of the challenges faced by food delivery agents as they race against time to deliver food to customers within the stipulated time.

In a widely-shared LinkedIn post, he shared six key learnings as a Zomato delivery agent.

In a lot of cases, customers do not mention the correct location of delivery or update their phone numbers, Jayaraman said.

“Sometimes cannot locate a restaurant if we are new to the location. Even you can't find it easily when using Google Maps,” he pointed out.

Sometimes, the distance becomes a problem. He cited his own example of having to deliver food in a location 14 km away from the place where he had to pick up the food. It was his third order in three hours.
Unlike the pre-conceived notion that the so-called hotspot locations receive more orders, Jayaraman said he received fewer order from such areas, and that too, during peak hours.

He received just three orders in three hours.

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Lastly, he said the shooting fuel price has been a huge issue. Tagging Zomato, he said, “Please help/support our warriors. I have seen some notifications where you are planning to help with a petrol price hike. Really appreciate that. Keep helping them.”

Last month, after Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal announced the online food delivery service provider’s plans to deliver food to customers in record 10 minutes, there was a huge backlash online, with many pointing out that waiting for 30 minutes for good food should not be a problem at all and that the express delivery service puts the safety of delivery agents.

Goyal came out with a detailed clarification the next day, stressing that safety of delivery agents will remain a priority even with the 10-minute delivery service.