It’s a frustrating situation that every delivery driver on DoorDash or Uber Eats has seen before:
You’re already on the way to the delivery when the customer messages you to let you know that the address in the app is wrong. They want you to go to a different address.
Sometimes it’s an honest mistakes. But other times it’s a trick to get delivery drivers go outside of a delivery zone.
What’s the right thing to do? Should you cancel, go to the new address, or do something else?
The good news is that you can get full pay and avoid a contract violation or flag on your account even if you don’t deliver to the new address.
And you can get a pay bump if you’re willing to deliver to the new address.
The best thing to do is to contact driver support when a customer asks to change the delivery address. Support can help you properly cancel the order and still give you full pay, or they can offer you extra pay to go to the new address.
Don’t cancel the order without contacting support! Cancelling the order when you already have the items will lead to trouble.
Read on to learn the complete strategy!
If the new address is very close to the original one and you’re willing to deliver the order
Let’s say the customer lets you know that they want to change the delivery address to something very close to the original one. It will only add a minute or two to your trip, so you’re willing to do it.
You have two options if you’re willing to go to the new address:
- Deliver to the new address. Treat it like a normal delivery
- Contact support and ask for additional pay to go to the new address. Then complete the delivery
You can let support know that you are willing to deliver to the new address, but that you want your final payout increased to compensate for the increased distance and time.
Typically, support will offer a pay bump. After that, you can continue and complete the delivery at the new address.
If the new address is too far away and you don’t want to go there
If the customer asks you to deliver to an address that is further than you’re willing to go, you have a few options.
- Best idea: Contact support to let them know you don’t want to deliver to the new address. You can still receive full pay
- Not a great idea: Deliver to the original address without contacting support
- Bad idea: Cancel or unassign the order without contacting support. Can lead to deactivation
Best option: Contact support and let them know you won’t go to the new address. You may receive full pay
As soon as a customer contacts you to change the delivery address, contact support. Let them know the situation and say that you aren’t willing to deliver to the new address.
You should receive full pay for the delivery, and you can ‘dispose’ of the order. Which may mean keeping the items.
Some drivers recommend driving to the original delivery address, then contacting support. The logic is this: By reaching the original delivery address you demonstrated that you intended to fulfill the terms of the original delivery contract. Now you have a better argument for receiving full pay.
Deliver to the original address and ignore the customer’s messages
One option is to deliver to the original address and ignore any messages from the customer about the new address.
The problem with this option is that the customer will report a missing delivery and driver support won’t know your side of the story. That could mean a contract violation or flag on your account.
If you do decide to deliver to the original address, contact support to let them know that the customer changed the address.
Cancelling or unassigning when you already have the order can lead to deactivation
Cancelling or unassigning an order isn’t a problem until you have the delivery in your hands.
You can cancel without penalty while you’re waiting for an order, but you risk contract violations and deactivations once you pick up the order.
To Uber and DoorDash, cancelling while you are in possession of the order looks suspicious. Do it too many times and you will lose your gig.
Instead of cancelling without saying anything, always contact support first to let them know the situation. They can cancel the order from their end and you are less likely to get a penalty.
Customers can only change the delivery address by contacting support, not drivers
Customers can only change the delivery address in the app, or by contacting app support.
Before the food or items are prepared, customers can easily change the delivery address on the order screen in the app.
But once items are being prepared, customers can only change the delivery address by calling customer support.
And after a delivery driver picks up the order, it’s unlikely that customers can change the address, even by calling support.
They can cancel the order, but once it’s been picked up for delivery they will pay the full original price.
If you set the wrong delivery address, you have to quickly catch the mistake to correct the problem.
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