Comment by coffee | Hacker News Reader

Comment by coffee | Hacker News Reader

> ...couriers have braved the elements, gotten by on meager wages and dealt with annoying customers, growling dogs and fifth-floor walk-ups, all for the chance of a big tip from a happy customer.

This is not how I experience it working, in my area, with sites like GrubHub and the others.

They ask for a tip UPFRONT, before delivery.

I usually like to tip cash (for obvious reasons). There is an option for this, and the problem starts when I select this option.

My food takes an extra 1+ hour to arrive. It's cold. Soggy. My family has been waiting for around 2 hours total.

Interestingly...

This NEVER happens when I tip upfront through the app.

Complaining to their support line never fixes the issue, so I started asking the delivery drivers about this.

What did they say?

Apparently, the app flashes the delivery drivers how much tip you've entered BEFORE they decide to take on your delivery.

So my order, when I pay a cash tip, simply doesn't get picked up by any delivery driver and it's at the restaurant getting cold and soggy.

When I tip upfront, it gets delivered in a normal timeframe.

I tested giving a BIG tip upfront, guess what?

My order came faster than it ever has in the past. I asked the driver and he flat out told me he saw the big tip and rushed to grab this delivery.

It's because drivers can and will reject orders with $0 tips. Drivers with GH get paid $3 + $.50 mileage as the crow flies. A $0 left on an order will be a total pay anywhere from $3-$5 depending on distance. It's absolutely not worth it to drive for $3-5 per order especially when a round trip for that order takes around 30 minutes. Also we don't get paid mileage for the trip to the restaurant. To add to the fire GH, DD, UE, etc all take about 25% from the restaurant so everyone is losing except for the courier companies.

So drivers can see the tip and food price before accepting an order? My understanding from reading a couple articles was that drivers could see how much they would get paid for the order but not see the breakdown of how much was the customer tip and how much was DD's contribution.

> It's because drivers can and will reject orders with $0 tips.

That's what I said ;)

Drivers can see the tip (or lack thereof) and NOT take the order. So the end result for a customer who likes to pay a cash tip AFTER service is rendered, always gets horrible service.

I'm not complaining about the drivers, it's the company.

I wonder if you added a note stating that you planned to tip in cash, whether the drivers could see that and give you better service.

Between a guaranteed tip of a known amount vs a maybe possible tip, which would you choose?

That being said they're probably aware of the average expected value of a cash tip, and it maybe lower than whatever you guarantee via prepayment.

It's like asking if you want $10 or what's in the mystery box. You should never pick the mystery box as there is no incentive to actually put anything good in the mystery box.

Although if drivers hear about this story and find out that some prepaid tips are doing nothing for them, their perceptions of the cash tip may change. I figure they have the ability to give the customer zero stars if the promised tip isn’t given.

That's what they see, that I'm going to "tip cash"

This sounds like fine model to me, pay more, get faster service. The key should be transparency and a minimum service level, ie. they should lay enough by default that every order will get picked up.

It's really not a fine model, though. This isn't groceries, or a package from Amazon, this is hot food ready to serve that goes cold and soggy.

Whole Foods (Amazon) grocery delivery has you tip the delivery person up-front. They still seem to screw up my order all the time. I mean, seriously, I KNOW they have the stuff on the shelves, but the delivery people flake out all the time and don't deliver half my order. What a scam.

I'm not a customer of either services since I'm not in the US but tipping upfront before you even receive the service seems a little odd. Doesn't one tip for getting an outstanding over-the-top customer service and in order to do that, one should undergo the entire workflow till receiving the goods?

You are correct.

In the US tipping is standard, not for over-the-top service.

In general, higher pay for better quality goods and services is part of a negotiated sticker price. Tipping is the anamoly here. In the DoorDash context, if the user were given the option to tip after delivery, they’d most likely just forget about the app once they got their food and never tip. So there’d be little incentive for the drivers to work hard for a good tip.

Unless service is so great that you have to leave a tip. I guess the culture in the US really puts tipping in a different light. When it becomes normal or close to mandatory I would say, to tip, so that workers get close to minimum wage, it really defeats the purpose. I guess I wanna tip when I feel that I'm getting more value than the amount I'm paying for and also when I'm not obliged to do so.

Anyways, aside from this point, whatever these startups are doing, are real shady. Them carefully choosing their words in the binding documents makes it even worse since they know the potential repercussions of these actions.

What if you give a good tip first but then the delivery turns out late?

Complain though whatever feedback mechanism the app gives you. Same thing you’d do if the food didn’t show up at all.

On the other hand, what does the driver do if they go above and beyond to give you great service, but then you don’t tip?

With prepayment of tip, we have no idea how the service will be. It would make sense to just roll it into the base cost.

The server doesn’t know whether you will follow through with a tip when they decide how well to serve you. The information asymmetry goes one way or the other.

There's also the issue of tipping for service before it's been rendered. So you might pay a big tip and still receive shitty service, and now you have to deal with customer support hoping to get a refund.

Honestly, I don't really care about all of that. If it's horrible service I can complain and most likely get a refund of some sort.

I care that I want hot food, delivered in a reasonable time, and that I can pay a tip AFTER service is rendered (based upon the actual service I get).

I feel like you're agreeing with me but don't realize it.

The issue as described here is that the service captures most of the value of the tip, so the drivers are wasting their effort when they rush to complete tipped orders.

Not if it's cash ;) Hence my point.

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