Lately, DoorDash has gotten a lot of heat from drivers due to several changes made to their payout platform and their seemingly low ball offers for orders. Their lack of full transparency compared to other app platforms like UberEats and GrubHub is alarming.
I personally feel that DoorDash is indeed being shady (At the least) when it comes to transparency regarding customer tips. Based on my own experiences and the experiences of others, there are good cases to be made that not only are they hiding tips but they might even be stealing them. Many drivers have been told by customers they have tipped significantly higher than the payouts on some orders. So where is that money going to? It certainly has drivers (And customers) scratching their heads.
The app itself is pretty stable for the most part. I mean, there's been a few app crashes over the Summer, but it's pretty simple to navigate and use. Their maps depicting hot zones which updates every 9 minutes isn't 100% accurate but it is helpful and their connectivity to outside GPS devices (Such as Apple CarPlay) is user friendly.
One thing I do not like about the app is having to pre schedule dash times. As I noted in my prior review in the GrubHub platform, as a 1099 worker, I really don't like having to be committed to any given app at any given time and while DoorDash sometimes does give you the liberty to jump in at random times (Depending on how busy it is), it still requires you to schedule a 'Dash' for a particular length of time regardless.
Another feature that I find annoying is the 'Pause Dash' option, Unlike Uber Eats and being 'Off Block' with GrubHub, you can't just go offline if you have to take a bathroom break, lunch break or break to multi-app and then jump back in whenever you want. Instead users are put on pause for 34 minutes (With a countdown timer displayed). If the timer counts down to 0, you are kicked off your current Dash and have to start a new Dash (If you are given the choice) and it makes it extremely difficult to track your daily earnings. Compared to UberEats, where you can jump in and out whenever you want, even after being offline for hours on end in a single day, it still displays your current earning totals for the day. Also, as of late, drivers who decline back to back orders are also being paused (As if it's their fault DoorDash is sending such shitty orders) which is contradictory to their terms of service which clearly indicates that drivers are free to accept/reject any orders they want. While that is still true, now they are punishing drivers for it. Again, it goes 100% against the grain for 1099 work.
A lot of app platforms cringe at the idea of multi-apping. I'm not sure why. If we truly are 1099 contractors, then they shouldn't have an issue with this.
Every app isn't always busy enough at all periods of time for a 1099 worker to rely on during a single shift. There are drivers out there who rely on food delivery as their single source of income, by making lame attempts to limit drivers to a single app, they are hindering this process. And not every order is worth taking. Sometimes, many orders back to back are not worth taking.
The problem with DoorDash isn't really that app itself. It has great features such as rating deliveries, being able to state reasons why there's a hold up in picking up at restaurants and having instantaneous options to unassign oneself from an order. The drop off process is also simplified and automatic. You indicate you arrived at the drop off location, a prompt comes up for 'Complete Delivery Steps' and you either snap/upload a photo of the delivery or indicate you handed the order to the customer.
DoorDash the company, itself is the problem unfortunately. It used to be a really great platform to use and the payouts were the best in the business until the last 6-12 months or so when it started getting shady with tips and extremely (Insulting) low payout offers. I mean to deliver Taco Bell 8 miles away for $2.00 is an insult!
I also find driver support to be hit or miss. Based on my personal experiences, I do not have any confidence at all that DoorDash is driver friendly nor cares about them (Their bread and butter). I've been basically thrown to the dogs numerous times, been unwillingly unassigned orders (Without being alerted to it half way through completing an order) and in some regards, DoorDash has costed me money.
The problem isn't the app itself. DoorDash isn't trending favorably among drivers these days and if conditions continue to deteriorate, they will not have a future in this business.
To DoorDash's credit however, this past Summer, a lot of drivers have panicked because of the normal Summer slowdown, but as it's winding down, the volume (At least in my market area) is rebounding (As it usually would). There are a lot of paranoid drivers out there and they just love to make DoorDash the underdog because they made themselves an easy target.
As a driver, I would love to see payout improvements, more tip transparency and better driver support. All 3 of these things would make it the 'Go To' app in this business. I am not willing (Yet) to give up on DoorDash, but they are indeed testing my patience. Right now, they are not my 'Go To' app for food delivery. They were 3 months ago.
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