Twilio helps reduce food delivery order friction by over 60%

Twilio, the customer engagement platform that powers real-time, personalized experiences for leading brands, today announced its communications technology is being used by Delivery Hero.

Delivery Hero is the world’s leading local delivery platform – reducing rider friction, improving customer reachability, and lowering support escalations at global scale.

By automating customer outreach at the point of delivery, Delivery Hero achieved:

• 25% reduction in overall rider contact rates
• 60%+ fewer rider-to-agent escalations in “customer unavailable” scenarios
• 65% customer answer rates for automated IVR calls in Spain alone

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.

When customers were unreachable at the doorstep, riders faced delays, language barriers, personal call costs, and long waits for agent support – while using personal phones raised privacy and regulatory concerns across markets.

“We need customers’ attention at the right moment,” said Philip Grefe, Product Manager, Rider App at Delivery Hero. “If the final handover fails, everyone loses. The customer doesn’t receive their order, and we’re left holding goods that can’t be used elsewhere.”

To solve this, Twilio’s 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.

With a single tap in the rider app, an automated call is triggered from a local phone number, delivered in the customer’s 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.

“At Delivery Hero, connecting riders, vendors, and customers is what drives our business — and Twilio helps us make that connection seamless,” said Grefe.

Built in Twilio Studio and integrated with existing systems, the IVR workflow enables customers to confirm availability or cancel deliveries without agent involvement. Scaling from first code to thousands of daily calls took under three months, rolling out a consistent experience across dozens of languages and markets.

“Delivery Hero’s use of Twilio shows how programmable communications can remove friction at critical moments,” said Jake Kanter, Vice President of Sales, EMEA Communications at Twilio. “By combining global coverage with local trust, they’ve turned last-mile delivery into a measurable, scalable, and customer-first experience.”

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.

Together, the two companies are creating trusted, compliant, and scalable communications that turn every delivery interaction into a seamless customer experience – for riders, customers, and vendors worldwide.

For more information, visit: www.twilio.com.