{"id":73250,"date":"2026-02-20T07:35:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=73250"},"modified":"2026-02-16T12:23:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T04:23:57","slug":"twilio-automated-voice-calls-help-reduce-food-delivery-order-friction-by-over-60","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2026\/02\/20\/twilio-automated-voice-calls-help-reduce-food-delivery-order-friction-by-over-60\/","title":{"rendered":"Twilio automated voice calls help reduce food delivery order friction by over 60%"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Twilio announced its communications technology is being used by Delivery Hero, the world\u2019s leading local delivery platform \u2013 reducing rider friction, improving customer reachability, and lowering support escalations at global scale.<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>By automating customer outreach at the point of delivery, Delivery Hero achieved:<br \/>\n25% reduction in overall rider contact rates<br \/>\n60%+ fewer rider-to-agent escalations in \u201ccustomer unavailable\u201d scenarios<br \/>\n65% customer answer rates for automated IVR calls in Spain alone<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Operating in around 70 countries, across four continents, Delivery Hero is responsible for 11 leading brands, including foodpanda, talabat, foodora, HungerStation, and PedidosYa. Every day, millions of customers rely on Delivery Hero for everything from restaurant meals and groceries to pharmacy items, flowers, and specialty retail. The rider app alone supports a vast global community of active riders, helping fulfill more than 10 million orders daily.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fixing the Last-Mile Handover<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When customers were unreachable at the doorstep, riders faced delays, language barriers, personal call costs, and long waits for agent support \u2013 while using personal phones raised privacy and regulatory concerns across markets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need customers\u2019 attention at the right moment,\u201d said Philip Grefe, Product Manager, Rider App at Delivery Hero. \u201cIf the final handover fails, everyone loses. The customer doesn\u2019t receive their order, and we\u2019re left holding goods that can\u2019t be used elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To solve this, Twilio\u2019s technology is being used to engineer pickup and drop-off communications using Twilio Programmable Voice, global phone number pooling, and Text-to-Speech. Fulfilling more than 10 million orders every day through a vast global community of active riders, reliable last-mile communication is critical to customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Local, Automated Voice Experience: Built Once, Scaled Globally<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With a single tap in the rider app, an automated call is triggered from a local phone number, delivered in the customer\u2019s preferred language. Riders no longer need to use personal devices, eliminating out-of-pocket costs and protecting privacy, while customers are more likely to answer trusted, localized calls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt Delivery Hero, connecting riders, vendors, and customers is what drives our business \u2014 and Twilio helps us make that connection seamless,\u201d said Grefe.<br \/>\nBuilt in Twilio Studio and integrated with existing systems, the IVR workflow enables customers to confirm availability or cancel deliveries without agent involvement.<\/p>\n<p>Scaling from first code to thousands of daily calls took under three months, rolling out a consistent experience across dozens of languages and markets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDelivery Hero\u2019s use of Twilio shows how programmable communications can remove friction at critical moments,\u201d said Jake Kanter, Vice President of Sales, EMEA Communications at Twilio. \u201cBy combining global coverage with local trust, they\u2019ve turned last-mile delivery into a measurable, scalable, and customer-first experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Measurable Impact for Riders, Customers, and Support Teams<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>By improving reachability at the doorstep, Twilio has helped Delivery Hero cut support tickets, reduced operating costs, and improved delivery reliability, without slowing riders down. In Spain alone, IVR performance data revealed 65% answer rates, with insights that now help identify invalid numbers and improve future OTP validation.<\/p>\n<p>Together, the two companies are creating trusted, compliant, and scalable communications that turn every delivery interaction into a seamless customer experience \u2013 for riders, customers, and vendors worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Twilio\u2019s technology is being used to engineer pickup and drop-off communications using Twilio Programmable Voice, global phone number pooling, and Text-to-Speech. Fulfilling more than 10 million orders every day through a vast global community of active riders, reliable last-mile communication is critical to customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":61592,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[284,7967,96,7551],"class_list":["post-73250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-app","tag-delivery-hero","tag-technology","tag-twilio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73251,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73250\/revisions\/73251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}