(Bloomberg Opinion) -- In the midst of our coronavirus-steeped moment, food-delivery services such as Instacart and DoorDash have been serving a vital role as more and more people hunker down at home and order groceries online. But these services can do even more: This is a prime opportunity for them to take on a social mission and build market share at the same time. And we should help them (and their delivery workers) do so.
The aging and elderly are some of the most vulnerable to the virus, which makes it especially important for them to avoid busy places — which unfortunately includes the grocery store. Delivery services are especially well-equipped to aid seniors, who even in normal times can find it taxing to lug groceries from the store back home. But these services’ current users are mainly tech proficient, financially well-off and young.
Delivery companies should launch campaigns to get as many seniors on board as possible. And that's not all: They should prioritize seniors' deliveries and reduce or waive seniors' fees until the danger of infection subsides.
Of course demand for delivery is at a peak right now. And it seems almost paradoxical — not to mention contrary to basic economic theory — to cut customer fees in a time of high demand. But these companies should look at the long run, using this as an opportunity to engage a consumer demographic that's usually the last to get on the tech-disruption bandwagon. Many of the seniors who sign up now will still appreciate the convenience of grocery delivery — and thus remain customers — once the coronavirus crisis finally subsides.
Moreover, delivery services may be able to raise some additional capital to serve seniors by crowdfunding: They could ask existing customers to pitch in and pay a senior's delivery fee — or even send food directly. Similar initiatives are underway supporting small businesses and gig-economy workers.
If delivery services do this, there's a second vulnerable population to keep in mind: those making the deliveries. As my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Lionel Laurent has already pointed out, these people are predominantly gig-economy workers. That means they're mostly hourly contractors without employment benefits such as health coverage or sick leave. Expanding food delivery demand means those workers will be taking greater risks -- going into more grocery stores, interacting with more people and increasing the odds of becoming infected.
Again, the delivery services themselves should be stepping up by committing funds to support sick leave and emergency medical care for their workers. Some, such as Instacart, DoorDash and Postmates have already taken steps in this direction, although a number of their employees and policy makers say these efforts haven't gone far enough. ] And once again, there is an opportunity for regular customers to chip in -- by tipping more than usual and by contributing to public resources that have already been set up to support gig workers.
There's some technology development required to introduce the sorts of features I'm proposing: adding crowdfunding options and verifying who is a senior, for example, not to mention making the systems easy for seniors to navigate. Plus I'm talking about squeezing delivery businesses on both sides of the transaction: reducing or eliminating fees for seniors while providing more support for workers. In the abstract, it’s easy to see why these services might be reluctant to do that.
But consumers’ overall willingness to pay for a service is proportional to the value the service is seen as delivering. By taking on a social mission in a time of crisis, delivery services can in theory increase their perceived value — a halo that might reasonably be expected to outlast the coronavirus. Social crowdfunding platform GoFundMe found as much when it switched to a pricing model based on tipping: plenty of users choose to “tip the platform” to cover its costs of helping raise money for assorted causes.
Strategies such as this should make the sense of giving tangible — with identifiable beneficiaries — and be shareable on social media. Giving works better when your friends can see you do it; you're more likely to give if you get social credit, and your friends are more likely to give if they see that you’ve done so (or if you ask them to). That's another lesson that's worked well for existing crowdfunding platforms.
Lots of people today are stuck at home and wish they could do something to help others. They can start by giving better tips when delivery workers show up with armloads of groceries. And if delivery services can build the right features, they can encourage more giving to help get food to people who need it.
It would also be great to come up with such a solution for other vulnerable populations — something of a mobile food pantry. But to do that food-delivery businesses would probably want to coordinate with existing food-aid organizations such as Feeding America and Bread for the City.
Instacart’s leave policy, for example, is conditioned on coronavirus diagnosis or mandatory quarantine, which may be especially difficult for affected workers to obtainbecause of their lack of health care and theshortage of tests. Postmates, by contrast, has focused on easing workers' access to health care, and will "cover medical check-ups regardless of whether the courier has been quarantined or diagnosed with COVID-19."
There's even an aspect of competition here: whichever service does the most good during this crisis will be remembered for doing so.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Scott Duke Kominers is the MBA Class of 1960 Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and a faculty affiliate of the Harvard Department of Economics. Previously, he was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and the inaugural research scholar at the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics at the University of Chicago.
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