I think its always a good exercise in empathy to try to imagine some reasons :)
- English as a second language. You need fairly basic proficiency to order online vs far higher proficiency to order via phone - specific jargon, high pressure, no non-audio clues
- even as first language many people dislike phone. Again, lack of visual feedback and other aspects
- harder to be certain you ordered correctly. You can review online order, you can easily mishear even a repeated order.
Same for address, which can be complex in some cases. Then you get into discussion with either driver or restaurant on whether you did or did not specify east vs west, crescent vs road, sixteen vs sixty.
- timing. You can take all the time in the world to order online vs a very specific real time slice requirement of phone call. You can order online while on 2hr phone conference or watching tv etc etc.
Heck I've just persuaded myself not to use phone ordering :-)))
re: English ( or whatever main language of the country is), in a lot of cases traditional restaurants ( various Asian, Italian, Spanish, Mexican, etc.) are owned and run by non-native speakers. As some anecdata, i tried ordering by phone from my local Korean restaurant, and i could barely understand the person on the other side due to their heavy accent, especially on Korean words ( which the menu items are in) and the fact i'm non-native myself.
Comments
I think its always a good exercise in empathy to try to imagine some reasons :)
- English as a second language. You need fairly basic proficiency to order online vs far higher proficiency to order via phone - specific jargon, high pressure, no non-audio clues
- even as first language many people dislike phone. Again, lack of visual feedback and other aspects
- harder to be certain you ordered correctly. You can review online order, you can easily mishear even a repeated order. Same for address, which can be complex in some cases. Then you get into discussion with either driver or restaurant on whether you did or did not specify east vs west, crescent vs road, sixteen vs sixty.
- timing. You can take all the time in the world to order online vs a very specific real time slice requirement of phone call. You can order online while on 2hr phone conference or watching tv etc etc.
Heck I've just persuaded myself not to use phone ordering :-)))
re: English ( or whatever main language of the country is), in a lot of cases traditional restaurants ( various Asian, Italian, Spanish, Mexican, etc.) are owned and run by non-native speakers. As some anecdata, i tried ordering by phone from my local Korean restaurant, and i could barely understand the person on the other side due to their heavy accent, especially on Korean words ( which the menu items are in) and the fact i'm non-native myself.