Delivering with Amazon Flex can be a great, flexible gig. Drivers earn at least $18 per hour, and you have the freedom to pick the delivery offers that work for you.
But the darker side of working with Amazon Flex is a punishing rating system called ‘standing.’ Just a handful of delivery issues can put your account at risk of deactivation.
So what can you do to keep your ratings up and avoid deactivation?
The best thing you can do to protect your ratings is to learn about the standing system and learn how to navigate Flex support to dispute unfair ratings. Read on to learn how!
Article Contents
The standing system for Flex drivers
Amazon rates the performance of Flex drivers with a system they call the ‘standing’ system.
Your standing shows how well you are doing with the Flex program. Your standing can be one of four ratings: Fantastic, Great, Fair, or At Risk. It consists of two larger metrics: Reliability and delivery quality.
As the name suggests, At Risk places you at risk of deactivation. That’s the one you want to watch out for.
How to see your standing and ratings
To see your standing in the Flex app, go to Menu > Your Dashboard. You will first see your standing 48 hours after your first block, and it is updated every day.
Deliveries up to two days ago are reflected in your current standing, so if you missed a delivery today, it might not show up in your standing for a few days.
Your Dashboard also displays your standings history, so you can see how your standings have changed over time.
See how your standings have changed over time in Your Dashboard
Better standing = Higher chance to get more offers
Low ratings can reduce the number of order offers that you see. Amazon says that “The offers you see may depend on your Delivery Qualify, and your Reliability.”
So if you’re not getting great offers, you need to improve your standing.
Reliability rating: Show up on time & don’t cancel blocks
The reliability rating is Amazon’s metric to measure if you show up on time to blocks and if you cancel blocks more than 45 minutes before the start time.
The reliability levels are Fantastic, Great, Fair, At Risk. When you’re in the At Risk level, you may be deactivated if your ratings don’t improve.
Reliability rating rules
- You must show up for your blocks on time within 5 minutes of the start time
- You must cancel a block at least 45 minutes before it begins
Reliability breaks down into two categories: On-time arrival and on-time cancel.
On-time arrival
You are expected to arrive and check in by your block start time. If you don’t check in within 5 minutes of your block start time, you may not be able to start and your reliability rating may lower.
On-time cancel
You can cancel scheduled blocks (also called forfeiting) without harming your ratings if you cancel at least 45 minutes before your block starts.
Your reliability rating will lower if you cancel less than 45 minutes before the block. In other words, no-showing your blocks will quickly lead to low reliability ratings and deactivation.
- Reliability rate: The percent of delivery blocks you arrived on time for out of the last 20 you scheduled
What the Flex app looks like when your standing is At Risk
Delivery Quality: Make sure to complete deliveries
Delivery quality is Amazon’s metric that measures how well you attempt and complete deliveries.
The delivery quality levels are Fantastic, Great, Fair, At Risk. Like the other ratings, you should be concerned about the Fair and At Risk statuses.
Delivery quality rules
- You must attempt every delivery, even if you end up marking the package undeliverable
- You must return undelivered packages to the pickup location
Delivery quality ratings are made up of the following categories:
Delivery completion
Any non-delivered packages can harm your completion ratings, even if you believe the circumstances are out of your control.
You must attempt to deliver every package, and all undelivered packages must be returned to the pickup facility.
- Attempted delivery rate: The percent of the last 500 packages that you attempted to deliver
- Delivery success rate: The percent of your last 500 packages that you successfully delivered
Amazon records every package that you don’t deliver
On-time delivery
Were your packages delivered during the window listed in the Flex app?
This can be frustrating if it’s physically impossible to meet the delivery window due to issues with the warehouse or the route.
Prime Now and Whole Foods deliveries are especially time-sensitive, so be careful with these orders.
- On-time delivery/attempt rate: Percent of your last 500 packages you delivered or attempted to deliver by the deadline displayed in the app
Delivered and Received
This measures whether the customer received their package and if you followed delivery instructions.
You hold ultimate responsibility for the customer receiving the package and must follow all other instructions, such as scanning a valid ID for alcohol deliveries.
Delivered and received can be a troubling metric if you are a victim of porch thieves or customers filing fraudulent missing package claims.
- Recent delivered/not received count: the number of your last 500 packages marked delivered but not reported received by customers
Amazon sends an email when a customer claims a package was not received
Why the standing system can feel unfair
One of the biggest criticisms of the Flex ratings system is that you can be held responsible for circumstances beyond your control, which can lead to fewer orders and deactivation.
The standing system is very sensitive. Great ratings from hundreds of successful deliveries can be ruined by one or two returned packages, or one or two customer claims.
All of the following could potentially cause a driver to lose standing, even though it seems unfair:
- Can’t deliver a package because there is no safe location and customer won’t answer calls/texts
- Can’t access the location (locked, restricted access) and can’t contact the customer
- Packages for a late or early shift that are undeliverable because a location is closed
- Customer not answering the door or providing ID for alcohol purchases
- App glitches. Unable to scan packages or lose delivery info due to a glitch, and you are held responsible
It doesn’t sound fair, does it? But that’s currently how it works for Flex drivers. You can try to dispute drops in standing, but it doesn’t always work.
How to improve your standing
It’s frustrating when your standing slips, but there are things you can do to get your ratings back into ‘Fantastic’ territory.
Doing more deliveries is the most effective way to turn your ratings around. A lot of the time, the best thing to do is to move on from past issues and continue working.
One bad rating isn’t the end of your gig, especially if you’re in the Fantastic or Great category.
But when you strongly believe that a rating was unfair and think it might harm your status with Flex, it could be worth trying to dispute the rating.
How to dispute an unfair or incorrect rating
Contact Amazon at [email protected] plead your case. Keep your story brief and to the point, and try not to get too upset or frustrated in your emails.
There is also a phone number for Flex drivers, but Amazon says that rating issues should be addressed via email.
Dealing with Amazon support can feel like an uphill battle, and you might spend the first few emails just trying to get support to acknowledge your issue.
Don’t give up too soon, especially if your standing is in the Fair or At Risk category.
If you stay persistent, there’s a chance that Amazon will overturn the rating.
It’s possible to improve your standing back to Fantastic
Getting deactivated from Flex
If your standing is ‘at risk’ and you continue to have issues, Amazon may deactivate your account.
You can also be instantly deactivated for major incidents, such as serious customer complaints about unprofessional behavior.
Amazon will email you to let you know that you are deactivated, but the email may only have vague details that don’t tell you exactly why you were deactivated.
Full guide: Deactivated from Flex? The top reasons, and how to get reactivated
How to get reactivated
To get reactivated on Flex, you have to contact Amazon support ([email protected]) and ask to be reactivated.
There isn’t a special appeals process or a dedicated deactivation team that you can contact. Instead, Amazon will instruct you to send them an email providing additional information within 10 days of your reactivation.
If you’re fortunate, Amazon may reactivate your account. Try to keep your messages with Amazon short and professional to increase your chances of success.
How to protect your standing
Here are a few ways to protect your standing and prevent deactivation.
- Always show up on time or cancel more than 45 minutes before a block
- Always attempt a delivery
- Try to deliver every package, even if you have to leave it in a non-ideal location
- Always return undelivered packages promptly
- Take careful photos of deliveries
- Don’t confront or argue with customers or property managers
- Leave a paper trail when you have issues: Call and text customers, call support, take great pictures
- If you notice a repeated issue with a business or drop off, ask a warehouse employee to remove it from your route
- Have a backup gig. Other delivery apps are great backups
Always have a plan B in the gig economy
Deactivations are common with Amazon Flex. You might have hundreds of perfect deliveries, but just a handful of mistakes or false reports could quickly end your gig at Amazon Flex.
You should always have a backup plan to prepare for sudden deactivations.
The best backup plan is to sign up for other delivery apps that offer similar work as Amazon Flex.
If you have an issue with Flex, you can sign into one of your backup apps the same day and continue earning.
More about Amazon Flex
Tina says
Has anyone accidentally scanned a ID for alcohol but it was a household not the Person , it happened by accident and now I’m scared to get deactivated I hope nothing happens I learned my mistake 🤞🏻
Dave says
I once failed an AVD by mistake but I called support and told them straight away. I was not at all deactivated and it did not affect my rating. I have found that if you keep them informed on all things then this will stand in your favour.
On the issue of time, of all the blocks I have completed I have only ever finished late once which was due, in part, to a loss of phone connectivity because of a service provider swap which interrupted the job for about half an hour. Other than that I have found that expectations are not too high if you keep your mind on the job.
VsNY says
Amazon will put flex drivers from excellent to risk regardless if issue is beyond the drivers control. On a 5-8p block I did not leave till 5:25, then a 35 min ride to first del, the navigation kept shutting down and freezing up so which are common problems. It causes the driver to focus more on your phone then the road extremely dangerous. Then the navigation would send me in a huge circle down and up all different roads only to go past my last del and around the corner to next address smh, what should have been 2 min tops took 7-9.
But the worse was nav taking me to a wrong address onto and up the driveway of a private road, get to house and a middle age cpl standing on their porch turn to my direction and def very mad I was on their property I went to step out to verify address and tell them I’m with Amazon within the seconds to step out and look up he had a shotgun pointing at me and told me I was trespassing to leave now!!!! It was 8:45 and I went directly back to return packages I wasn’t doing another del after that. I notified support thru email bc they were closed by then, they got back to me, even called but next time I went to del they dropped me from great to AT RISK!!! Because I didn’t attempt to del last 4 pkgs!!! I guess I was expected to finish regardless of having a gun pointed at my face? I contacted them to ask how I could get dropped to lowest from highest especially under circumstance??? I was told that they noted my files of situation but can not change my standing!!! Bc I did not attempt to del last 4.
The previous block I was given 48 packages, detained at warehouse and first del 40 min from there! Rush hour, construction on parkway so it was 6:30 when I got to 1st stop—1 and 1/2 hrs to del 48 packages and all had dif addresses not one had more than a pkg to drop off.
So I’m placed at risk and threatened to be deactivated!?!
I understand the importance of customer satisfaction, not sure how drivers employed by them are treated in such situations but as a flex driver I was not given any understanding to what occurred, all that mattered to them was I did not del 4 of the 28-30 pkgs, so I guess if I was hurt standing still would go down, as well as if I get into an accident or navigation sends me off a mountain cliff smh. And believe me Uber’s navigation sent me to the edge of a cliff one night! Thank goodness a deer ran out and I had to stop!! Do these top/upper management even take a look at different areas n road conditions? Not every area
Chris says
The Flex navigation app is flawed too- on a recent route I got a gig for being late on deliveries when the app took me to a gated entrance impossible to access- was entry into a country club community. When I contacted the customer they gave me vague instructions said I had to access at a “main entry” and be let in by security. I had to use my own IPhone maps to navigate into the community after wasting 40 minutes using Flex navigation. On the same route it was raining and my first half of the route was all apartments. I used an umbrella to protect the packages and had to climb to the third floor for a few of the deliveries. The apartments and rain put me behind big time. Also at night it’s hard to read the address markers on the curbs- and they stuck a package in my route where a lady wanted delivered at her job which was closed a few hours by the time I got to it. I won’t deliver ever again on a rainy day and won’t take late deliveries anymore.
Bill says
I strongly suggest taking the time to contact driver support when finding a delivery issue. This simple step, stopping and making an attempt for assistance, often solves the issue at hand, someone comes by and helps with access, or driver support sees a note for gaining access..always assume you will succeed with the delivery, and the situation resolves itself. I call it the Kung fu I love you method!! And I love how everything always seems to go my way!!
Vandy says
I am very frustrated with the Amazon flex support, there many times when I pick the packages for delivery and all of the packages in this block has a deadline that is impossible for me to meet. My schedule time is 6:45 am to 11:15 am. My travel destination to the first delivery location is 30 minutes 20 minutes away. But all of the packages in my route us scheduled to be delivered by 8:00 am. Now there is no way I can deliver all these packages by 8:00 am. This beyond my control, it is a set up for failure. Because they already gave me bad ratings for this. I have other blocks that my start time is 6:45 am – 11:45 am, it takes 35 minutes to my first delivery location and every single packages in my route are all apartment complex, which most them require access to the building. And lots of times I don’t have access to the building, and customers don’t answer there phone and the leasing office is closed. So I have to try to attempt to deliver at a later time. There are always traffic, construction and parking I have to deal with. These tend to take longer some times I go 1 to 2 hours past my block time. And for the packages that I don’t have access to the building I have to bring those packages back to the station which is another 40 back to the station. So my 4 hour turns into 6 1/2 hour block. But they don’t care, they still blame be for packages not delivered and packages delivered late. These are issues that they need to fix, but it seems like they won’t fix because I get blamed for the same thing. I have to explain every time. The problems will not be fix if they choose not to fix it. But instead they threatened that if don’t bring my ratings up, they will not let deliver fir flex anymore. Something that is beyond my control I can’t fix. I feel that this is unfair and this needs to be reinvestigated.
Brandi Ray says
Same thing is happening to me as I went from fantastic to at risk in 2 days and support is no help it’s so upsetting I also feel it’s set up for failure
J sanghera says
Amazon great company to work for apart from there driver support who don’t take things into consideration my standings was all excellent work but they deactivated my account for age verification when I did all age verification… I done all age verification but they never believe you and there is nothing you can do about it. there is no reason to not do the verification and they don’t listen to reason. Customer who are obviously over 18 get annoyed when you ask for verification but you still do this and then you get penalised if they complain . So you lose your income and there’s nothing you can do because with Amazon there always right there support team are a disgrace and just close your account instead of looking into your record. There is so many short comings in there support team but it’s always the drivers at fault never them because it’s easier for them , so it looks like there taking actions when they get reviewed. So disappointing how they treat there loyal drivers
Brandi Ray says
I agree The fact they give you sometimes 47 packages for 4 hour block which if you have a close route that one thing but no they always send me 45 min to 1 hour drive and I have a full-time job I have to get up early I don’t think once I’m done delivering for them I won’t spend a dime with them they are rely unfair to there drivers