I've lived in New York City for a majority of my adult life. I also don't know how to cook edible food, so I rely on the vast number of food delivery options in New York - Seamless, UberEats, Postmates, etc. Whether I eat at 6pm or 11pm - I know I can tap on an app and get a meal delivered to my living room.
I've been using Seamless since the first week I moved to the city. And lately, it has gone downhill fast.
- The tracking system that the app uses is antiquated and far worse than what I'm now used to in the era of UberEats. For example, yesterday I ordered a meal and it was delivered to me in about 30 minutes - faster than usual. As soon as I sat down to eat, I get a notification that my food was on the way.
- The app has taken a turn for the worse every single time. A few days ago, I tried to enter in a new credit card and kept getting an error message. No specific error message, just a generic one. Given that many of the Seamless competitors support Apple Pay, it's annoying to have one app that doesn't support it.
- Seamless also doesn't maintain any sort of proactive quality control or customer service. When I have issues with Postmates or UberEats, there is always an alert or phone call that indicates what the issue AND the resolution is. However, that hasn't existed with Seamless - despite their customer service being excellent when you reach out to them.
In an era of mobile first, it's sad to see original disruptors not being able to deliver. And the issue is not unique to Seamless. Postmates has yet to accurately quote me on an order and UberEats is still learning the ropes.
Mobile is important and a cohesive user-experience is more important than ever. There's a base level of expectation and with dozens of competitors in each market - the best one wins.