DoorDash driver hits back after company issues warning to customers who choose not to tip
Topics: DoorDash, Food and Drink, News
Britt Jones
Featured Image Credit: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images/ GMA
Topics: DoorDash, Food and Drink, News
We all love a good old food delivery, but that happens when the company decides to threaten non-tipping customers with longer waiting times?
This is what DoorDash has found out after testing a new notification that aims to encourage customers to tip their delivery drivers.
The message that will appear to some of its app users reads: "Orders with no tip might take longer to get delivered -- are you sure you want to continue?"
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Talking about what it hopes to get from this message, the company said in a statement: "While the vast majority of customers do leave a tip, offers that don’t include a tip can be seen as less desirable -- this impacts our entire community, leading to longer wait times for customers, orders sitting longer at merchants, and less value for Dashers.”
However, one delivery driver has hit out at the company for this messaging, believing that they shouldn’t be relying on customer tips in the first place and should pay more.
David Slyder has been a DoorDash delivery man for nearly three years and appeared on Good Morning America to call his employer out.
He said: "I think DoorDash should pay their drivers more and meet their customers, their clientele in the middle.
"We use our own vehicles. We put our own gas."
The move to send the message to customers comes mere months after videos circulated online of a range of delivery drivers, DoorDash included, shouted at customers for not tipping enough for their food.
However, one could argue that tipping has increased in recent years, especially after the pandemic forced restaurants to scrape by on less resources as prices began to rise and operating times lessened.
Square, a financial services platform told ABC News that tipping has increased during the pandemic with tips in 2022 sitting at over 25 percent at restaurants and 17 percent at fast-food placed.
Mike Lynn, a professor of consumer behaviour, told the morning show: "COVID caused people to be willing to tip more -- but that increase in tipping kind of communicated to businesses, 'Hey, consumers are willing to tip more. Let's start asking for it.”
But DoorDash has come out to state that its fees and tips are separate.
A rep said: "Those fees are shown to the customer before they decide what to tip. It varies by order. Our fees won’t change based on whether a customer does or doesn’t tip, separate thing entirely.”