[Case Study] Solving Accidental Orders

Recently, I heard a very interesting story about Swiggy from someone. Their mum booked a high value order as a surprise for them on Swiggy. Since they had a Swiggy One subscription, the whole family used the same account. Halfway through, the delivery person calls them, says the vehicle broke down. Mum steps away to deal with something else and when the delivery person calls again, their dad picks up. The delivery person says the vehicle broke down but he'll figure something out and send it with someone else, but to do that first, he'll need their details. He proceeds to ask for their phone number (linked to account) and for the OTP sent from Swiggy? Sounds super strange but the dad took pity and figured sure, let me try and make this delivery person's unlucky day a bit nicer — after all, it's a Swiggy account anyways, what harm could it do. He shared the OTP. Almost immediately after, the delivery person changed the phone number for the account and everyone logged in lost access to the account. Ofc, he scammed the order for himself. The real kicker is that their Email ID was still linked to the account, so anytime the delivery person makes an order, they get an email with his order details. So far, they've been regularly getting order details emails with orders for paan, gutkha, cigarettes and some sides/chakna, all to some mall. 😂 Now, cool story bro, but how is this Swiggy's fault, you ask? Well, support has been contacted multiple times, over multiple accounts, but to no avail, because clearly their customer support has gone to shit. Even with the address and phone number of the delivery person who scammed them, and having an email id linked to the account, they've been of absolutely no help, as if their hands are tied. Their user workflows are so brittle, they don't account for the simplest locked out of account scenarios, let alone address security concerns and protect the customer from their own agents. Truly a wonder this company is worth anything.

This is a question asked in interview. How would you go ahead and solve for this?

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Title is from post comments Why'd anyone need this in 10-15 minutes?

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Now imagine, we did not have Zomato, Swiggy, Blinkit, Zepto, Dunzo (its pretty much there) What would your next bet be? Well 1. You have some of your local grocery stores who would deliver for you, but it might take a bit of time 1-2 hrs etc. and you need to build a relation, and only some stores do that 2. Restaurants need to have delivery available who if anyone remembers, it was a pain to coordinate, sometimes they dont do beyond 3 kms. You will have to go on your own. Which will also cost you money. Restaurant deliveries usually have a delivery fee, plus the cost of food. There is still a lot of coordination involved to get what you want. Brochures, phone number etc. 3. Having a full time person who will do all of these for you, Building tends to have someone who also delivers ( like a chotu or someone ) So lets take the cost of 3 for now if you needed full time 1. Monthly cost - ~ Rs. 10,000 - 15,000 if you needed full time 2. What are you spending on swiggy etc? 1. No of times you are ordering: lets say twice a day 1. 2 * 30 * 20 = Rs. 1200 2. Lets say total amount you are paying is 10000 in amount 3. Some folks might even argue that you restaurenters are charging 30% extra. ( lets say 30% on 10,000 ). 4. So lets factor in 3000 Rs more, so we have total sum, 4200 now. 5. Time saved = 20 * 15 minutes = 5 hrs a month So we saw three choices You can do things on your own 5 hrs of your own time ( which does not cover your cost to move around, so if anyone does not have a vehicle, they have to either walk more, or pay for auto etc ) Spending on convenience Rs. 4200 Spending if you had a chotu - Rs.10,000. This is debatable, you can argue, this person can also will end up cleaning and doing 3-4 other things. Some will also say restaurants mark to and sell. My request to you is, even with all the markup how much extra are you paying. And then compare to your alternatives before them. If someone has a better math or see any flaws in this. share input

I need to buy something from someone who is far away and it's a classic trust issue. we both don't know each other, so shall that person send the item first or i need to transfer the money first ? he is asking me to just trust and transfer the money first but I don't want to risk the money. a neutral third party could be a solution but doesn't seem feasible in this situation. also we can't bring legal contract or anything here. how do I solve this ?

It has been only 3 days since I moved to a Tier 1 city and I came across multiple user problems already. Problems and Solutions : 1. Credit system in Uber / Ola / Rapido when a user's mobile switches off in middle of the journey. 2. Conversation in Rapido's product team : The cancellations are increasing. What can we do about it? That Product Manager : Let's remove the cancel option. When I booked autos from two different apps, and I got an auto immediately in one, I couldn't cancel it on the other. The driver kept on calling. And the list goes on. You cannot solve a user problem unless you go through it.