Doordash - You Don't Appear to be Heading to the Order

During the past couple of days, I have noticed something new going on while I am out Dashing. Apparently, Doordash is not going to let any dashers delay any of their orders anymore. After you accept an order, they want to make sure that you are on your way to the restaurant, or they're going to reassign the order to another Dasher.

Doordash does not want any dashers to be stalling

The first time that I noticed Doordash sort of rushing me was the other day. It was a slow day and not many dashes were coming in. I decided to get myself something to eat. While waiting for my food, I ended up getting a ping on my phone, and I accepted the order. The restaurant, and the customer's destination were not that far away so I figured that I would wait for my food, eat it, and then be on my way. The delivery time was one hour away so it was no big deal.

After accepting the order, I ended up waiting about ten minutes for my food. I sat down and started eating my food, but while I was eating I received a text message that said:

"You don't appear to be heading to the order, do you need help?"

I didn't know if this text came from the customer or Doordash. I replied back to the text

"I will be picking up the food and delivering soon. By the way, who am I speaking with?"

I never received a reply back, and proceeded to eat my food which took about another ten minutes and that was that. I thought it was kind of strange, and I honestly thought that the text came from a customer that seen my location on the navigation and maybe thought I was taking too long to bring them their food. When I did deliver the food, there was nothing abnormal, and the customer seemed happy.

Fast forward to the next day. It was the same situation, slow day, I was eating, got the ping and accepted a dash. Ten minutes after accepting the order, the same text message came in just like the other day.

"You don't appear to be heading to the order, do you need help?"

Now I knew this message was not coming from any customer. This text message was coming from Doordash. I did not reply this time. After eating, I was ready to go but then decided to use the restroom real quick, and then I got in my car and was ready to take care of this order, but before I drove off, I receive another text message that said:

"An order was reassigned after 25 minutes of inactivity"

Doordash took this order from me and reassigned it to another dasher. I guess the new thing is that if you do not start moving within 25 minutes, you will lose that particular dashing assignment. This is a good move by Doordash to get their dashers moving. I admit, since I knew that I could have the customer's order to them by their delivery time, I was guilty of some stalling and enjoying my food too much.

I just want to pass this message on to any fellow dashers out there so that they know what can happen if they stall with the dash. I did notice something else though. This seems to happen during the day time peak hours. At night time, even when stalling a bit, these messages never come in.

Happy Dashing!!