12 Ways to Get Your Food Delivered Faster
Ever wonder why your food delivery orders occasionally arrive cold, soggy, or otherwise unappetizing? This recurring problem brings into question whether the convenience of food delivery is worth the risk of unsavory food.
Sometimes restaurants make your food before a driver has agreed to pick up your food. When that happens, your bagged-up food is left sitting there alone as minutes pass and in-person customers enjoy warm meals on the other side of the counter. Other times you may have a driver who backs out of the job. Again, your food sits there in a bag, patiently waiting until a second driver accepts the order.
Other factors that may slow your food down include traffic, long lines, driving distance, large orders, and lost delivery drivers.
With so many factors working to slow down your order, it’s amazing that drivers show up with steamy, delicious bags at all.
While you can’t solve all food delivery problems, you can help get your food delivered faster by following simple guidelines. And since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, these tips are more useful than ever as you look to new ways to stay safe. In fact, just this October, U.S. consumers who ordered from a food delivery service rose to 34%, compared to just 27% in October 2019.
As food deliveries become more and more popular, it’s beneficial to know and understand how you can help your food arrive as quickly as possible.
12 tips to help drivers speed up the delivery process
We talked to a handful of drivers to learn how customers can help make food deliveries faster and easier to make. Read through the top 12 suggestions to find out how you can help your food order get delivered quicker.
1. Switch on your porch light!
Many of us turn on our cell phone flashlights when coming home at night. If we have trouble navigating to our front door at night, imagine someone who has never been to your house and has their hands full.
Turning on your outside lights once the sun starts to go down is a really easy way to help your driver arrive safely and find the correct door faster.
2. Make sure your home address is visible.
House numbers hidden behind foliage or decorations slow down the delivery process. Drivers may have Google Maps telling them they’ve arrived, but the app abandons them on the street. So make sure your home numbers are easily visible. Doing this can cut minutes off the delivery time.
3. Secure your pets.
The number of times drivers have been bit by pets with owners who initially claimed “Oh, he isn’t aggressive” is unbelievably high. Let the drivers complete the delivery without meeting your dog.
Unruly pets can cause drivers to become anxious about delivering to your house in the future. And if you need to spend time calming Buddy down after the “scary man with the bag” leaves, it will cut into your eating time.
4. Add specific notes to make your house easier to find.
If you live in a single-family home, add notes like blue house with fence, house with a giant tree in the front, house with the red door, black Toyota Accord parked in the driveway, 3rd house from the stop sign, and so on to make your house easily identifiable.
Unclear in-app instructions frustrates 39% of drivers, according to USFoods.com, so take a few seconds to remedy this issue in the notes section.
5. Add specific notes to make your apartment easier to find.
If you live in an apartment complex, you can let your driver know that your unit is across from the pool gate, by the leasing office, or near the barbeque area.
You can also place an item in front of your door to make it easier to spot, like a beachball or a colorful placemat. Just be sure to let your driver know this in the notes.
6. Tell drivers where to park.
If you know parking is a pain in your neighborhood or apartment complex, let your driver know where they might be able to find parking.
You can tell them to park in your driveway, assigned parking space, or even meet them by a close landmark. For many drivers, finding parking can be the biggest time waster when it comes to making deliveries.
7. If you are ordering from a business, enter the business name in the notes section.
Most businesses have their names written across their front doors or outside the building. This is much easier to spot than having to look for building numbers. It also lets the driver know that the delivery is not for a residential address. Clarity is always your friend when it comes to quick food delivery.
8. Keep your phone on loud and close by.
Drivers get frustrated when they have a question about your order or directions and the customer doesn’t answer. Each minute that passes with no response means colder, soggier food. So keep your phone with you on loud so your driver won’t waste time waiting for your reply.
9. Tip well.
According to USFoods.com, 60% of delivery drivers get irritated by weak tips. Meager tips are also one of the biggest discouragers for drivers accepting jobs. So if you want your order accepted quickly by a driver, then leave a sizable tip.
10. Select the “Leave at the door” option.
DoorDash and some other food delivery services automatically sets new orders to the “Hand to customer” option. Not only does this option prevent drivers from being able to use the photographic proof of delivery feature, but it also slows down your order if you need to hold back your dogs and calm them down after.
11. Order from restaurants within your area.
The bigger the difference between your house and the restaurant, the more time it takes to get your order to you. It also takes more time for the driver.
Unless you tip well, many drivers pass up orders like this because their vehicle wear and tear or gas cost might not get covered with the payout.
12. Keep your walkway shoveled during winter.
This may seem like common sense, but many drivers struggle to get to a home safely because customers haven’t cleared a walking path. With full hands, drivers don’t have a lot of room for error and can spend a lot of time trying to carefully walk to your door. So make sure you keep your walkway shoveled and easy to navigate through safely.
Summary
According to Forbes, the online food delivery industry is predicted to reach $200 billion by the year 2025. In other words, food delivery services aren’t going anywhere. So taking the time now to figure out what helps your driver get your order to you faster will result in better food for years to come.
To further help drivers, you can submit a map of your complex (if you live in an apartment, mobile home, etc.) to One Hundred Feet Inc, a geospatial mapping company. One Hundred Feet produces a free app called Beans Maps for Apartments for delivery drivers. Thousands of drivers use this app to locate complex destinations in record time.
Please email support@beans.ai to submit a map.
Delivery Drivers
If you are a delivery driver, you can download our app and use it’s features like apartment search, mileage tracking, proof of delivery, and more for free.
Download the Beans Maps for Apartments app: Google Play and App Store
