Before we decide to accept the delivery offer
Since we are all independent contractors
The companies must give us certain details up front
Total pay (mileage pay + tip) - all apps
Mileage - most apps
Pick Up Location - all apps
Pick Up By Time - some apps
Deliver By Time - some apps
General Drop Off Area - all apps
Exact Address Of Drop Off - some apps
Then we have about 30 seconds to accept, or decline
Before the order times out
And it's offered to the next available driver
It could be several minutes before somebody else is even available
And they might not want it either
Drivers are paid by the delivery, not the hour
Ya prop 22 makes them do an hourly adjustment
But that only puts you a little above minimum wage
Drivers are focused on how many delivery's we can complete
So long wait times are not usually your drivers fault
Because the faster we are, we literally make more money
Why accept a 3 mile delivery for $3.50 with no tip
When prop 22 doesn't cover the return trip
When you can wait a couple minutes for a better offer
And bam, the next order offered is a 1.8 mile delivery
With a pay of $8.50 because the customer tipped
Of course nobody is saying you have to tip
But if you don't tip, and it takes awhile to get your order
Please don't give the driver who did bring it a low rating
Because it took a long time to get your food
That driver actually hooked you up
Because they also could have declined the 3.50 pay
Some drivers fear no tip orders
Simply because they fear a possible bad rating
The dispatch may be 20 minutes old
Before it's even offered to you
Because everyone else turned it down
But we have no idea if you just ordered
Or if you ordered 20 minutes ago
I'm not in the habit of taking no tip orders
Unless it's the end of the Month
And I'm trying to boost my acceptance rating
Of course a ratings system is necessary
But the ones used by a few company's
Are simply ridiculous
Not informative
Way to punitive
Ratings haunt you for way too long
And after all that
They are also ineffective in creating change
Because they don't give your driver the comment you left
So you see a bad star rating
But are not told the exacts of the problem
Could of been something that's not even your fault
The ratings system use a twisted rolling 100 system
Which is totally unfair
Because a low rating only falls off
After your next 100 customers complete the survey
And give you a better rating than your lowest
But how many of us take the time to report great service
We're suppose to get great service
So we ignore the surveys
The consequence for the good drivers is this
That one low rating you get here and there
That may of had nothing to even do with you
Sticks around FOREVER
When your driver gets it right
Please give them their 5 star
I'm in the process of making an alternative comment system
I't will still be anonymous
But drivers will actually be able to view all customer comments left about them
I don't have an exact launch date yet
Check back on the websites homepage periodically
I will make an anouncement when it's ready
In fact, technically we are the boss
Technically we are our own separate business
There is VERY MINIMAL mandatory training for this job
You can find a ton of help, if you look for it
But those delivery instructions customers always leave blank
Can, and must substitute for “driver training”
If the new drivers, and some regulars
Start seeing these repetitive “customer expectations”
In every customers delivery instructions
Well, since half of our income comes from customer tips
You would have to be pretty dense
To not adapt to what your customers want
And it's not crazy requests
What your message must include
"Driver thank you for everything you do
I have recieved cold food on past orders
So could you please include your hot bag
In the proof of delivery picture"
Do you want your driver to knock, or not
Be specific and to the point here
Some customers think that "leave at door" heading
Implies they don't want a knock or door bell ring
IT DOES NOT IMPLY ANYTHING
"Please knock and ring the door bell"
"DO NOT knock or ring the door bell"
That's what drivers need to see
This next one should be common sense
But you know how that goes these days
If you have a door that opens outward
Like a screen door or whatever
"driver please don't block my door it opens outward"
And lastly, any little details specific to your address
That may help the driver find the place
If they have signed up for my Go Driver Go app
They should never have any navigational issues
All customers, drivers, and merchants
Need to explore the OBDriver website
The spread of these platforms
Will improve service across all app based delivery services
PERIOD
The internet is full of customer, and driver complaints
It's time somebody bridged the gap between us
And puts focus on fixing the things we can
And how to live with the things we can't fix
And ya, I'm the guy to make it happen
Is the real reason for long delivery times
Not Drivers Fault
You may have ordered at 2pm
The app may not offer it to me until 2:20pm
If other drivers have declined it repeatedly
Usually because of low pay offered for the delivery
I have no idea how old the dispatch is when offered
Not Drivers Fault
Merchants can be 10 – 15 minutes late with your order
A few restaurants are notorious for this
Some drivers just decline orders at those merchants
Unless the pay is just to good to pass up
Not Drivers Fault
Another driver may have accepted the order
And then unassigned it for whatever reason
Extra long wait expected at merchant
Drive thru line is a mile long
If driver cancels 15 minutes into the delivery
The order will be reassigned
But the delivery times will have been adjusted
The new driver has no clue it's already 15 minutes behind
Not Drivers Fault
The app sends you a double delivery
Sometimes the orders are from different merchants
And one of the merchants is late making their order
Now both of your customers delivery's will be late
Drivers Fault
After you accept a delivery
The app will offer you a add on order
It sees something it thinks will make a good double
But the app is stupid sometimes
And offers an extra order that makes NO logistical sense
And again if either merchant is late, both orders will be late
Drivers have to have a lot of experience
To know which add ons will not likely impact service
Drivers Fault
Most drivers have contracts with multiple delivery company's
And run all the apps simultaneously
If you just pick the best order that pops up
And go complete that one, no problem
But sometimes drivers will be active on say a doordash order
And then Uber Eats, or Grub Hub sends them an offer
And they will stop and pick up the second order
While active on the other companies order
There are no stipulations in our contracts that say we can't do that
But in my opinion it is in poor taste to do so
But we are technically our own business
And part of being in business is to make money
Drivers Fault
Driver gets lost
It's all GPS based so most delivery's go smooth
But sometimes Google is wrong on a location
Business complexes can be hard to navigate
Mobile Home Parks can be tough to navigate
And apartment numbers can be hard to find sometimes
My driver app I offer for a small fee
Solves a lot of those issues though
Drivers are supposed to use a hot bag
Unfortunately some drivers don't use insulated bags
And the company's only supply one small bag
As a contractor,
Drivers need to obtain a few other bags
Most of the merchants do not use heated holding racks
Some merchants start your order as soon as you place it
Some receive the order only after a driver accepts the delivery
So if the food is on the rack when we get there
Well how long has it been there?
Even if you use a regular insulated bag
It can't heat an already cold order
Now my electrically powered bags can do that
It's why I love them so much
My customers receive the hottest food possible
Unless you ordered a cold item
Since merchants mix hot and cold items in the same bag
In that case I use my regular bags
To make this type of delivery possible
It has to be paid for somehow
Building bridges to share information
And some tell me about orders that never get picked up
And I tell them about some of the pay offers
Without a tip, the app company may offer 9 bucks
To travel to the furthest part of Sutter
That can be 17 miles round trip, no thank you
So it just sits on the merchants rack indefinitely
Google may take you one or two lots over
If you don't verify the marker on the structure
You might make a mistake
Some apps let the customer adjust the delivery pin location
This is a bad idea
It may get moved by accident
Customers with Google errors
Can address it in the delivery instructions
Were not paid by the hour, plus tips
Like a normal delivery driver
We are paid a base mileage pay
Which is not very high
The average delivery pays us $3.50 to $4.50
And if you throw a tip on there
Out to Wheeler Ranch Park area
Plumas Arboga and Feather River Blvd
The app will offer 9 bucks mileage pay
That's like 20 miles round trip, come on
Drivers that know better, reject those deliveries
You may get an offer on the way back
Somewhere in Olivehurst, or Marysville
But the epicenter of activity is in Yuba City
And your essentially off the clock
The moment you drop off at the customers house
Most companies don't give us the time you ordered at
And many drivers before me may have declined your order
So it's possible to accept a order that is already late
But you think you have delivered on time
Because the app tells us we were on time
But since it took so long overall
You complain about it being late
The company doesn't tell us the nature of your complaint
So we just get a bad rating, and don't know why
Orders that only offer the company mileage pay
And no customer tip, routinely get passed over
These company's depend on desperate drivers
To just accept any low paying orders offered
But these are usually the drivers that don't use hot bags
Because they are not clearing enough profit to invest
Don't understand they are technically their own business
And take measures to continually improve their service
This is more profitable for drivers
The potential to double your money
But it can impact your delivery times
Doordash does the most business in town
So during lunch, or dinner rush
Multi order delivery offers are common
And if drivers have been declining a low pay order
They may double it with a good paying order
But that could make the good tippers order late
They may have even tipped well
Because they thought that would discourage drivers
From accepting a second delivery
The app may offer you a second order
Sometimes it won't impact delivery time that much
But it can get really ugly
Sometimes the second order makes no logistical sense
But the driver might not see that, and just accept everything offered
Or it will offer one of those no tip orders
Or reporting the common problems
Through the app, or to customer support
Does nothing to change the behavior of the driver
Because they 100% do not forward us your complaint
All we see is the low star rating
And have no idea what the problem was
And when the service is great
They make it hard to report it
The easy to find options focus on problems
It's like they can't imagine that a delivery would be good lol
So why give the customer options to compliment
You pretty much have to call customer support
If you want to report 5 star service
But honestly who has the time, effort, or desire
To go through a hardship, to report good service
So it's hard to get those 5 stars we deserve
And we are left with the complaints
That may not of even been our faultv And it takes 99 new good ratings
To erase the bad rating
Most customers don't go out of their way to report happiness
So one bad, and possibly undeserved rating
Can haunt you for 5 or 6 months
Since we are independent contractors
They can't schedule us with enforceable work times
Depending on the app we either
Sign up for days and times, which we can cancel
Some apps just let you log in, and out whenever you want
On Doordash if your a top dasher
You can sign in whenever you feel like
Or regular dashers can sign in if the zone is busy
So these apps never know for sure
How many drivers they will have at any given time
And if drivers will accept the orders offered to them
And they still make the deliveries happen
That is an amazing task
Kudos app companies
See them around for a few days, then never again
If they are accepting every order, as offered
Two things happen
At the end of the week their like
“I didn't make **** this week”
And then they may have several low star reviews
Like 1 or 2 stars which are DEVASTATING
Mainly to your ego, but can impact your pay
And guaranteed the complaints are from the no tippers
All the other drivers turned down that $3.50 no tip order
By time the newbie accepted it, its already way behind
And the no tipping customer gives a 1 star rating
But with no comment, so it sticks on your record
So newbies are like
“I didn't make ****, and these low ratings, I quit”
You don't actually quit, you just stop signing on
You can go months without signing on
Then pop back on the app whenever
Doordash is the delivery big boy
Tons of orders, lots of pressure on their app
It will freeze up at the worst times
Sometimes you have to restart your phone
Or even reinstall the app to fix it
Sometimes it will think you accepted orders you didn't
Then count them as orders that you canceled, gee thanks DD
I feel bad for them
They have very limited power
For the number of issues they deal with
They may be paid by call
So the faster they get you off the phone
The more they get paid
So hence the disconnects sometimes lol
For customers the blanket fix is just DD credits
I'm a customer also so I know the frustration
Ya I get credits for my next order
But since they don't forward your problem to the driver
They will probably make the same error on your next order
Support is usually forced to use pre typed responses
Because they deal with multiple calls or texts at a time
And those responses many times don't address your problem
The calls I've had as a driver with them, like purgatory
Many problems we have just get “forwarded” to doordash
And we never hear back from them with a response
Which could cause delivery time issues for your order
BEFORE you do the payment on the app for your order
Order something small from 7/11 also
A fountain drink or something
This prevents your order from being doubled with another customer
And you will have the driver all to yourself
This also prevents the algorithm from sending your driver add on orders
Doordash doesn't charge a delivery fee for the second order
Just split your original tip between the two orders
I actually learned this trick from a customer
Doordash may adapt to this at some point
And find a way to still double up your order
But it still works for now lol
Because it's based on the dollar amount of your order
But drivers look at the mileage to your home
It's irrelevant to us the dollar amount of your order
We are looking at how much gas it takes to drive to you
And the vehicle maintenance costs associated with the mileage
I will give you the basic bare minimum numbers
That cover mileage and work time
But gratuity is also about appreciation
So going above this basic formula is greatly appreciated
If you are one mile or less from the restaurant $2 minimum
Anything above a mile, multiply the extra mileage by $1.5
Then add the two together
(google map the distance yourself, The ordering screen underestimates the mileage)
So if you live 3.7 miles from the restaurant
First mile $2
Then 2.7 multiplied $1.5 = $4.05
$2 + $4.05
This is whats minimally fair
For the cost we incur delivering in our own vehicles
Drivers need a way to actually be informed of your issue
If not, how can we ever adjust our service
You can leave comments about my service
Directly on my website, and I can reply back
I would like to expand this capability for other drivers
But that is a major undertaking
It would quickly improve service though
If drivers knew what the problems were, pretty simple
