In the last couple of years, our Tech and Logistics teams have made significant changes to how tips work. From what it was, when we started the tipping feature on Zomato online ordering application back in 2019, we’ve certainly come a long way. For one, now our delivery partners are notified immediately of a customer’s generosity. 

While we were rolling out these changes and diving deep into the world of tips in India, we learnt that, as a country, we’re quite new to this habit. Here are a few facts that put it in perspective –

One of the reasons that prevent people from tipping is that there exists an array of commonly-believed misconceptions. Out of these, the following two are the most widespread –

• A lot of people think that the tips given via the Zomato platform are not transferred to delivery partners in full. A part of it is taken as convenience or platform fees
• Tips are transferred to the bank accounts of delivery partners along with their monthly or weekly payout and not on the same day

However, the truth can’t be far from this. As an organisation, we are keen on improving the lives of delivery partners and helping them achieve their financial goals. 

Whatever amount delivery partners get in tips, 100% of it is transferred to their accounts directly. In fact, we absorb all payment gateway charges, including administrative and convenience fees, to ensure tips remain 100% transferrable. 

As for the timeline, tips don’t form a part of the weekly payouts. We transfer tips as and when they are received i.e., on an ongoing basis. Fun fact: of all the tips we get, we transfer ~80% of them to delivery partners’ bank accounts within 60 minutes of receiving them. 

All in all, we credit 92% of the tips to delivery partners’ accounts within 24 hours of delivery being completed. We are working with our banking partners to ensure we hit 100% here, at the earliest.

Communicating more 

As a platform connecting multiple stakeholders, our responsibility exceeds just developing better processes. We also need to build trust and transparency at every stage of our stakeholder journey – be it for our customers, restaurant partners or delivery partners. As the first steps towards this, we’ve started sharing more information about our initiatives on the customer and delivery partner apps.

For instance, on the customer app, we actively showcase why tips are more important during certain days (for instance, festivals, weekends, late-night deliveries, rainy season). 

Fun fact – While, on average, 5% of daily orders have a tip included in them, on Diwali – the number increased to 6.3%. 

As for the delivery partner app, we actively share more information with delivery partners regarding who tipped them, when they will receive it, and a notification when the amount is actually credited. Additionally, for the delivery partner to reciprocate gratitude, we have small nudges throughout the tip journey to thank customers, both online and offline. 

Currently, of all the delivery partners who get tips, ~88% of them click on the ‘thank you’ pop-up to show gratitude to customers. 

Here’s how it looks – 

Over the months, this communication has helped make the interaction between customers and delivery partners more pleasant.

Another step we’re taking in this direction is making the overall process simpler. We understand that different customers have different preferences. While some like to pay tips in cash, others want online payment. One group likes to pay while placing an order, another one wants to do it only after receiving their order. To accommodate all these, we have made multiple flows on our customer app. Here is how this looks –    

Bonus fact – Customers find it a lot easier to tip while placing their order rather than later. Most of our tips – ~85% are added to the cart, and the remaining ~15% are initiated from the order tracking screen. 

In addition to this, we keep adding small nuggets to make the whole process fun, such as dynamic emojis on clicking the amount, an animated video showing a tipping jar, and more.   

Hope the article helped you learn more about tips. We will try to share more updates in the future on our new improvements. Till then, keep ordering (and tipping). 

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