Restaurants traditionally have not participated in shopping services because, unlike non-perishable goods, food generally should be consumed shortly after preparation. However, the adoption of the Internet has made restaurant shopping services feasible, as diners can be given a selection of restaurants within a specified distance of their location. Additionally, for each participating restaurant of a restaurant service, diners are presented with a list of menu items for selection to place orders. Orders are then forwarded to corresponding restaurants for food preparation. Food can then be delivered to diners, or diners can go to the restaurants to pick up their orders. Made-to-order food is generally delivered by delivery drivers. In certain cases, such as heavily congested areas, delivery drivers deliver made-to-order food by walking or bicycling, instead of driving automobiles.
For a restaurant service, many types of problems may arise from serving made-to-order food to diners. For example, the restaurant service may fail to send an order placed by a diner to the serving restaurant corresponding to the order. The failure to transmit the order to the restaurant can be caused by a number of factors, such as a poor communication connection or an on-site service appliance failure. When an order is successfully transmitted to the restaurant, it needs to be confirmed by the restaurant. Due to various reasons, such as human errors made by employees of the restaurant, the restaurant may fail to confirm the order within a certain time frame. Accordingly, the diner for the order cannot be timely served. Additionally, the restaurant may request to cancel an order in certain cases. For example, where the restaurant is too busy or cannot find a delivery driver, the restaurant requests the restaurant service to cancel the order.
An order may be late for many reasons. For example, the serving restaurant is late to prepare food for the order. Similarly, the delivery driver for the order may be late to deliver the order. For instance, the delivery driver is lost in driving her delivery route. As an additional example, inclement weather can cause late delivery of an order.
Where a problem arises in serving made-to-order food to a diner, a restaurant service provider or a restaurant usually relies on a telephone operator to handle the problem. For example, the telephone operator (such as a restaurant employee) handles calls from unhappy diners, calms them, and mitigates the problem. The conventional method to handle restaurant service problems does not provide an efficient way to provide high quality food service to diners.