For the past four months or so, I’ve been driving for UberEATS, the food delivery service.
Uber is quick to extol the perks of driving for the company, and honestly, there are benefits. Chief among them is the flexibility; you’d be hard-pressed to find another part-time gig you can do whenever you want, without any kind of schedule. But the negative aspects of driving for Uber are numerous, and many UberEATS drivers — if not most of them — would say the negatives outweigh the positives. Suffice it to say, driving for UberEATS sucks.
But it doesn’t have to. It shouldn’t. As I’ve driven for UberEATS, I’ve taken note of improvements Uber could make that would improve the driver experience. In fact, I think implementing these changes would be a win-win-win: Good for Uber, good for customers and good for drivers. I should add, also, that I’m not alone in desiring some of these changes. Many of them are longtime gripes among UberEATS drivers. It would be nice of Uber to make a greater effort to address its drivers’ concerns.
Without further ado, here are seven changes Uber should have made yesterday to improve the Uber driver experience.
1. Pay Drivers For Driving to the Restaurant.
When an UberEATS courier receives an order, they aren’t paid anything for the drive to the restaurant. Drivers are paid a pickup fee, a dropoff fee, and for the distance between the restaurant and the customer, less Uber’s 25 percent cut.
If the restaurant is only three or five minutes away, it’s not a huge deal that the driver isn’t paid for the drive to pick up the food. But when UberEATS sends you to a restaurant 10, 15 or 20 minutes away, only to deliver the food to a house that’s maybe four or five minutes away, it’s a huge slap in the face to the courier, because they might only make $3 or $4 for a half hour or more of their time (especially if they had to wait at the restaurant).
Here’s how Uber can fix this problem: Pay drivers something for driving to the restaurant. Or, failing that, establish a threshold that would trigger additional compensation for the courier. Say, whenever Uber sends you to a restaurant that’s 10 minutes away or longer, you get an additional $1 payment. (Really it should be more like $3 or $4, but even $1 would be better than nothing and seems like a more likely amount that Uber would actually pay). Alternatively, if a drive to a restaurant takes longer than 10 minutes, Uber could pay the courier a small per-minute fee, say, $.03 per minute.
Where would the additional compensation come from? Easy. Uber can pay the couriers out of Uber’s cut on the delivery. After all, it’s the couriers that are going the extra mile (literally) for Uber’s benefit. They should be compensated for their time.
2. Fix the Crappy Navigation.
Uber has its own in-app navigation, and that’s a great idea. It’s so much simpler for the driver to simply accept a delivery, and then have the directions instantly appear within the app, rather than opening the directions up in a separate app, like Google Maps. The problem is that half the time, the directions are completely wrong and end up wasting time for everyone involved.
Get your maps together, Uber.
3. Boost Better.
UberEATS offers incentives to couriers in the form of “boosts.” In the Uber Driver app, a map is displayed with territories divided by red border lines. Within each territory, Uber promises to “boost” a courier’s pay by a certain percentage … 1.2X, 1.5X, 1.9X (the most I’ve ever seen). The idea is that Uber incentivizes drivers to work in areas that are experiencing higher demand.
But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been planted firmly in a high boost area, only to have Uber constantly send me to an area with a lower boost, or no boost at all. If they need to keep sending people to that area, there must be a lot of demand … which means it should probably have a higher boost, right? I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but it sure looks like Uber is trying to game the system and pay drivers less than they’re owed. They should pay you for the boost in the area you’re in, now the area they send you.
4. Lower the Wait-Time Threshold to 10 Minutes (Like It Used to Be)
If you had to wait at a restaurant more than 10 minutes for food and you contacted customer support, Uber would give you $5 for the waste of your time. They have since increased the threshold to 15 minutes.
The fact is, couriers shouldn’t have to wait even five minutes. But 10 minutes was at least a somewhat reasonable threshold for a payout. Fifteen minutes is not reasonable. If I have to wait 12 minutes, I’m supposed to just take the hit to my hourly pay and not be compensated for sitting at the restaurant, twiddling my thumbs? I don’t think so, Uber.
I understand they probably raised the threshold because so many drivers were requesting extra compensation. But that obviously means there’s a huge problem with drivers having to wait. The solution to the problem isn’t to screw drivers over even more. If Uber is concerned about the cost, they should make the restaurants pay the driver to incentivize them to not waste drivers’ time.
5. Guarantee a Minimum Per-Trip Payment
Uber should guarantee a minimum payout for each trip. I’d suggest $4. Driving for Uber isn’t a pleasant job, and when you get paid just $2 or $3 for a trip, even if it’s a short one, it’s extremely frustrating. Uber can fix that by offering a minimum payout.
6. Emphasize Tipping More
Uber has a reputation for purposefully making it difficult for people to tip drivers on the app, possibly in an effort to make customers think tipping is unnecessary so that they perceive UberEATS as a more affordable option compared to competitors like DoorDash or Postmates.
There’s some truth to this, as I’ve experienced it personally when ordering food from UberEATS. Uber doesn’t have to require tipping, but it should make it easy for customers to do so if they want. And frankly, Uber should encourage tipping, even if it’s just gentle encouragement. UberEATS drivers work hard and they deserve a chance to be rewarded for it.
7. Don’t Be Cheap. Give Drivers a Hot Bag
In addition to UberEats, I’ve driven for both Postmates and Door Dash. Both of the latter companies gave me a free hot bag upon signing up (a bag designed to hold food in and keep it warm). For Door Dash, I had to go into one of their offices to sign up, and was given a bag. Postmates mailed me a bag.
Uber never sent me a bag, and that’s cheap and stupid of them. It’s bad for everyone. It’s bad for the driver, especially if they haven’t signed up for another service that gave them a free bag. It’s bad for the customer, who gets cold food. And it’s bad for Uber when drivers either give customers cold food, or show up with a bag with a big Postmates or Door Dash logo on it, making their customers aware of viable competitors.
The bottom line? Stop being stingy, Uber. There’s no doubt in my mind your cheapness is actually costing money in the long run.
If I haven't scared you off yet, keep in mind that UberEATS can be beneficial, especially if you need a gig that's extremely flexible. If you want to give it a try, use my referral link when you sign up to guarantee at least $165 for your first 30 trips: https://get.uber.com/p/eats-courier/?invite_code=bcrcx7kuf