News

Olo launches platform to help restaurants offer faster delivery

Dispatch is a new service that enables restaurant operators to offer food delivery at scale.

September 4, 2015

Olo, a digital ordering provider for over 150 restaurant brands across the nation, has launched Dispatch, a new service that enables restaurant operators to offer food delivery at scale, according to a company press relesae.

Developed in cooperation with key clients and partners, Dispatch represents Olo’s first major product expansion that may be used with Olo's digital commerce platform or as a standalone that connects to an existing ordering system, said Noah Glass, founder and CEO of Olo. Today, over 14 million consumers use Olo’s platform to expedite restaurant orders. The addition of Dispatch provides the option of having orders conveniently delivered as well.

Olo’s new service was built in response to increasing consumer interest for on-demand restaurant delivery, reflected by the weekly use of delivery services nearly doubling over the past five years, Glass said. With the industry awash with a new class of technology-enabled delivery service providers (DSPs) like Postmates, Caviar, DoorDash and OrderUp (recently acquired by GRPN) seeking to service local delivery needs, there has not been a sustainable option for larger regional and national brands until now. Dispatch creates a national network of DSPs that augment a restaurant brand’s existing digital ordering program and enables locations to offer delivery service regardless of location, Glass said.

"The missing link in restaurant delivery today has been a logistics stack to synchronize orders — from the kitchen to delivery courier and the restaurant guest," he said. "Dispatch helps our clients properly coordinate delivery orders seamlessly, while supporting our mission to help them maximize restaurant revenue per square foot."

Dispatch integrates with today’s growing number of DSPs to provide a comprehensive delivery network and real-time price quotes for food delivery. Restaurant brands can now rapidly deploy delivery at scale with a service fully integrated into their point-of-sale platform and kitchen production systems, all the while maintaining a sovereign relationship with loyal guests instead of forcing them to order from third-party websites, Glass said.

"The growing use of delivery services is a great way for us to build our business, but today the delivery networks are very fractured," said Dave Lehn, CIO of Noodles & Company, an Olo partner. "We need a way to consolidate the providers so we can offer delivery across all of our 450+ restaurants."

Here is how Dispatch works:

1. A guest visits the restaurant’s existing digital ordering website or mobile app, builds an order and pays.
2. At checkout, the guest selects "delivery."
3. Upon selecting "delivery," the guest enters his address and receives one or multiple delivery times and price quots from local DSPs.
4. The guest can track his delivery from courier traveling to the restaurant, the order being fired into the kitchen for prep, the handoff of the order to courier, and finally the map-based, turn-by-turn delivery of that order from the restaurant to the delivery address — all live from the restaurant brand’s existing digital ordering website or mobile app.

"More and more customers are using delivery than ever before and delivering a superior guest experience is our number one focus," said Jon Hartis, senior director of IT at Which Wich, an Olo partner. "We believe providing a delivery service that consolidates all the providers into one standardized service across our locations will allow us to provide a consistent brand experience."