Bengaluru techie Namrata Singh, a product manager with over nine years of experience, donned a Swiggy delivery agent's hat to understand the gig economy's impact. Sharing her experience on LinkedIn, Ms Singh highlighted the interesting aspects of the job and Swiggy's safeguards for ensuring smooth food deliveries.
"Homegrown brands like Urban Company, Swiggy, Zomato, Blinkit & Ola have created multiple jobs for the lesser educated segment in India and this is going a long way in improving the economy of our country," Singh wrote on LinkedIn. "I, like many others here on LinkedIn, fuel the demand of such services but I was always inquisitive how technology is utilised to fuel the supply end and my curiousity led me to Swiggy Deliveries."
Ms Singh revealed that Swiggy's app empowers delivery agents with transparency. They see both the distance (current location to the restaurant and then to the customer) and their potential earnings before accepting an order.
This "incentivises the agent to take more deliveries," said Ms Singh.
She shared that upon accepting an order, agents must track their progress through the app, marking their arrival at the pickup location, order collection, and final delivery.
"The delivery agent has to post a picture of herself in her Swiggy uniform when she reaches the delivery location," revealed Singh. "This provides an additional layer of safety to ensure the delivery is being done by the registered agent."
Ms Singh shared that completing a delivery brings a double dose of satisfaction for agents: a prominent display of their earnings on half the screen, acting as an immediate reward, and the peace of mind of having a readily accessible SOS button for emergencies.
Bengaluru techie's experience as a Swiggy delivery agent has taken LinkedIn by storm, racking up hundreds of likes and comments.
A user wrote, "That's quite insightful Namrata Singh. I liked the way you have written the conversation using 'she'. I follow the same practices and tell my stories by using 'they' and 'she' rather than 'he'. Kudos to your efforts. Thanks for the post."
Another user wrote, "Working as a delivery agent must have been quite the eye-opening experience!"
"Great post Namrata. Clearly shows your concern for society, strong desire to make a positive difference and reinforces the critical role of startups in our ecosystem," the third user commented.
"The best and real time example of walking in somebody's shoes to understand their challenges," the fourth user wrote.
"Good read, you made reader feel, what a delivery provider goes through, and what else can be done to an end user application to serve both customer and business," the fifth user wrote.
