I’m sure you’ve heard of Uber, right? Well, then maybe you’ve heard of DoorDash too? On the off chance that you haven’t, DoorDash is a similar business model to Uber. The major difference is that DoorDash isn’t chauffeuring you around town, but instead, scooping up your precious meal from your favorite restaurants and delivering it directly to your door.
DoorDash is a Smartphone app that offers a lengthy list of restaurants and fast food chains to order from and have delivered right to you. It’s much like playing PacMan on your smartphone to control real drivers, zipping them around corners and into tunnels to capture food and enemies. (Only joking, a little.)
In all seriousness, food delivery is nothing new, but the choices have typically been limited to Pizza, Chinese food, or if you are a Californian, then Pink Dot and services alike. Even Uber has their own food delivery service called “Uber Eats”. The idea of being able to order from just about ANY restaurant to have it delivered wherever you may be, sounds like a dream come true to many people doesn’t it?
There is just one, really, really major flaw with DoorDash.
Before I drill into this issue, allow me to paint the picture of my most recent experience for you. I’m not entirely new to DoorDash. I could estimate that, my family has used DoorDash at least 10, maybe 15 times since learning about it. This has all been within the last 3-4 months.
Just another night, with door dash… We ordered up some Whataburger. Food arrived (a little bit later than the estimated time), although that worked out better for us since we were still working on getting the kids settled into bed. We began sorting through the food, and all was well on first glance. Then I noticed, something doesn’t look right. That’s what my gut was telling me at least, but I brushed it off and thought nothing more of it.
So a few more nights go by, and here we go again. DoorDash it is. With 3 children, and working some 60+/- hours a week on average, you have to find a way to buy more time in life.
We picked Wendys, which is something we might have only a handful of times out of the year. Hopefully DoorDash isn’t creating a bad habit, again.
Ok, so the food shows up, and we start going through the bags. Just about everything was wrong in this setup. We were missing a frosty, but the spoon it comes with was in the bag. The burgers were not how we ordered them, and the drinks were nowhere near full. Then to make things even worse, the fries were only about 2/3rds full.
Now for the important part, which I haven’t disclosed to you yet.
Out of the 10-15 times we’ve ordered from DoorDash, we’ve never had the same driver twice (and everything has been fine so far). Except, on these last two orders, from Whataburger and Wendy’s I was just mentioning above. The first time he dropped off our food, I remembered looking at him and thinking, this guy is carrying our food? He looks like he hasn’t showered in weeks, maybe months…
So this last time, when I am sitting there looking at our food from Wendy’s, I’m realizing. Holy, you know what… This is now the 2nd time in a row, that we’ve ordered food and have come up short, and it happened only with the same driver! So, what do I do? Well, I put down my food, because I can’t eat it and I reopen the DoorDash app to write some concerning feedback. I wrote, submitted and then got into the car (after some pacing back and forth thinking over what just happened), drive around a bit before deciding what I am going to eat instead, then I get a follow up call from the DoorDash customer support team.
He asks how I am doing, and apologizes right away for the issues (I submitted pretty detailed feedback). Afterwards he then asks me to explain everything that happened in more detail.
The customer service rep then proceeds to tell me that he looked up the history on this driver and at first glance, saw that he had a 97/100 score, which was pretty high considering. Then he mentions looking over previous case history to see if any complaints have been submitted on the driver. The rep began to explain to me, that he believes everything I am saying simply because, the driver has already had two identical complaints in the past! Food showing up short!! He described it as “a bit of a sticky finger.”
There is one thing I am sure as hell about – I don’t want sticky fingers, or any fingers for that matter, around my food from someone who isn’t a professional. This is just, disgusting. Someone who is responsible, and get’s paid to deliver food to your door, is likely eating out of the wrappers, drinking from your cups, or pinching something from the trays! Then, you get to eat your own left overs! What is this? Is DoorDash a charity service, or a food delivery? It gives a whole new meaning “I will work for food.”
Let’s stop and think for a second…
Is Uber a perfect company? Clearly not, but what company is? We can’t expect DoorDash to be either. But in my opinion, they need to consider closing the doors (or the App) completely until they solve this MAJOR problem.
There are many questions that revolve around this business model. Who vets the drivers, are there any personal interviews, is there any food or specialized certification required beyond just a drivers license? Heck, is a drivers license even validated, or do you signup on some halfway functioning contact form via their website? Who knows, and I’m sure it’s not really that bad, but the point is… this problem can’t be fixed without some drastic changes.
Unless DoorDash, can install cameras into the car or implement policies to prevent drivers from going “inside” to package your food and drinks, and even then, is this good enough? Nope.
What solution is there to prevent a DoorDash staffer from munching on your food while not in the car and when no one would be the wiser? The safest but less practical solution, is to require the restaurants to utilize one-time seal-able bags before they hand over the food to the drivers. This way, you know that your food hasn’t been tampered with during it’s trip to you. The problem with this, is that there is not yet a one-size-fits-all package in the market to handle every configuration, but until then, DoorDash needs to stop delivering food, and start investing into the packaging business. Otherwise, they can NEVER guarantee clean or safe food that hasn’t been tampered with of which they are delivering.
So what’s your thoughts? Did I burst your bubble on food delivery? Are you going to continue ordering, or are you glad that you read this article before trying the new “food delivery” craze? Let me know in the comments below, I’m curious to get your perspective on this!
