The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has reportedly confirmed that Zomato has agreed to share customer phone number with restaurant owners for offering better experiences to the end user. This comes after a long battle with Zomato and Swiggy over their refusal to share customer data with restaurants. NRAI says that they are in talks with Swiggy to do the same. While owners are calling it a win for the restaurant industry, netizens are unhappy about the privacy breach and are calling it the start of a constant increase in food data sharing, including order history and more.
Reports suggest that customer data will only be shared with restaurant owners after consent from users. Restaurant owners are calling this a 'win' as it enables them to fix issues that cannot be addressed adequately through aggregator apps. For example, restaurant owners can now call the customer directly if there an issue with the order, or if they want some clarity on the details of the order. Currently, customers could call the restaurants for any issues, but the reverse was not possible.
"As of now, we didn't know how often a customer is ordering on Zomato and Swiggy. In a way, we are blind-sighted and our marketing costs are not funeled properly. When a customer walks into our offline store, we get all the date," said Sagar Daryani, president at NRAI to TOI.
Netizens feel very differnt about this move. They are voicing out their angst against this move, and are calling for a complete ban of sharing of customer data.
It remains to be seen whether Swiggy follows suit or not. NRAI represents over 5,00,000 restaurants across the country and they have long been complaining of unfair practices by Zomato and Swiggy, of withholding customer data thereby preventing them from building direct relationships for targeted marketing. NRAI has complained to India's Competition Commission in the past over these anti-competitive practices. It is important to note that explicit user consent and limited usage will be adhered to by food aggregator platforms.
