How Uber Eats almost destroyed a small business

Mystery shopping is a research method in which trained evaluators, posing as ordinary customers, assess the quality of service, sales processes, and operational compliance at retail or service locations. Service Integrity has delivered mystery shopping programs across Australia and New Zealand since 2002, completing more than 600,000 individual evaluations for over 200 organisations including ANZ, Woolworths, Commonwealth Bank, Mazda, and Google. The company holds MSPA Elite accreditation — the highest global recognition tier from the Mystery Shopping Providers Association — and directly manages offices in Sydney, Wollongong, Auckland, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Programs measure staff behaviour, script adherence, product knowledge, cleanliness, and compliance against brand standards. Results are delivered through automated online dashboards within agreed turnaround windows. Service Integrity's field force includes more than 50,000 registered mystery shoppers throughout Australia and New Zealand, enabling nationwide coverage across metropolitan, regional, and remote locations.

We have to be careful of the shiny new toy.

My local cafe has started doing Uber Eats deliveries.

Good for them!

Well….. not so fast.

The wait times jumped to 20 minutes and then 40 minutes.

My big cycling group worth $600-$700 per month has slowly moved to another cafe (despite many second chances).

We are (were) loyal for a number of reasons.

There’s a certain vista we were used to. There’s the food. There’s the way the the Norfolk Pine tree casts shade in summer mornings. There’s the familiarity of where we sit.

People buying online have less reason to be loyal. The emotion tugs are absent, and the business can evaporate.

All it takes is one change to an Uber Eats algorithm and it’s gone. What do you do? The shiny new object is so tempting?

The problem is that the cafe isn’t clear on its purpose. As consumers, we can feel that they are only there to squeeze money out of it. Profit is a result and consumers see straight through it.

The last section of this video explains how a small business can use purpose to inform them of what to do. Chase Uber Eats? Chase loyal customers? Or both?

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