Zomato tests opt-in phone sharing to enable restaurant marketing offers

New Delhi: Zomato is in the early stages of launching a feature whereby customers' phone numbers will be shared with its restaurant partners after obtaining their consent, CEO Aditya Mangla said on Thursday, a move that responds to the restaurant industry's long-standing demand.

Through this feature, restaurants will be able to share marketing and promotional updates directly with the customers. 

In a post on LinkedIn, he shared that under the new feature being rolled out, a pop-up will appear after customers place orders via the app, asking them to choose if they wish to share their phone number with the restaurants they order from to receive offers directly from them. It specifies that once shared, this information cannot be withdrawn and by consenting, the customer agrees to the T&C and Privacy Policy.

"We at Zomato are in the early stages of launching a feature on the app that gives customers the option to opt-in to receive marketing and promotional updates directly from restaurants. If and when consent is provided, only the phone number will be shared with the restaurant. No other information will be shared," Mangla said.

Swiggy, too, is in discussions with the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) regarding the sharing of customer data, people in the know said.

While NRAI did not share comments for the story, the restaurant association has been demanding customer data from food delivery aggregators consistently in the past.

Anshoo Sharma, CEO & Co-founder at magicpin, the third-largest food delivery player, said, "Being part of ONDC, we do share customer data with our merchant partners, in line with industry protocols and customers' privacy standards. Merchants already have access to comprehensive dashboards that offer insights on new customers, competitive comparisons, rankings and detailed performance charts - tools many partners find intuitive and motivating. Any data sharing on our platform is governed by established protocols with user trust and privacy at the core.”