Doordash Drivers - Do you take and accept every call offered to you?

Accepting every Doordash call is something that lots of Dashers practice. If they are not accepting every call, many of them are very close to it. Most new Doordash drivers will generally have a high acceptance rating while veteran drivers will have a lower acceptance rate. We'll talk about that a bit more in a few minutes.

Dashing is exciting for new Doordash drivers

When a new Dasher begins making deliveries it's usually quite exciting. I can remember when I got my first Doordash call and how cool it seemed. I couldn't believe that I was actually going to get paid to deliver a McDonalds order to someone's house.

When a new Dasher's phone beeps and an offer is displayed, there's no doubt that the new Dasher is going to take that call as they are excited to make that first delivery. As calls come in one after another, the new Dasher will see that this whole Doordash thing is pretty cool. Meanwhile, Doordash has started to keep track of their acceptance rate and other statistical information.

The Doordash app will take a while for a new Doordash driver to get familiar with. The dasher will learn how to use the functions and buttons of the app while learning how to make deliveries at the same time. While learning all of this, an individual will notice that there is a ratings button on their Doordash app. The new Dasher will notice that there are lots of different statistics that Doordash will keep on them.

The Doordash ratings

The ratings that Doordash will keep on a Dasher are customer ratings, acceptance rate, completion rate, on time or early percentage and will also keep track of a Dasher's lifetime deliveries. Any new Dasher is going to want to keep their ratings as good as they could, and that is understandable, but what they don't understand is that there are some Doordash ratings that matter and others that don't.

Most Doordash ratings do not matter

There are some Doordash ratings that matter and others that do not. To protect yourself from ever getting deactivated for low ratings, you are going to want to pay attention to your customer ratings and your completion rate. That's all! Nothing else. Did you notice that acceptance rate is not part of the important ratings?

A Dasher must not let their customer rating fall below 4.2 and their completion rate must not fall under 4.80. If this happens, Doordash may deactivate a Dasher's account. As far as acceptance rate is concerned, it doesn't matter what a Dashers acceptance rate is.

Doordash cannot deactivate a Dasher for a low acceptance rate. If they did so, they would have a major legal problem on their hands that they know they would lose. As independent contractors, Dashers don't have to accept a certain percentage of calls. Don't ever worry about being deactivated for a low acceptance rate. It would be illegal and will not happen.

Is it worth taking every Doordash call?

Generally, it isn't worth taking every Doordash call. There are just too many bad calls out there. Why would somebody accept all those $3 and $4 orders when there are $10 plus orders out there? Wouldn't it better to just wait for the better calls to come in so that there will be respectful earnings at the end of the shift?

 

Who are these Dashers with high acceptance rates?

Most Dashers with high acceptance rates are new Dashers. Many of these Dashers feel like they will get punished or something by Doordash if they deny too many calls. I mean, why would Doordash have the acceptance rate displayed if it was not of utter importance right? Many of these Dashers have acceptance rates in the 90 to 100 percent mark. With an acceptance rate that high, that means that they are accepting many of the low paying orders and may be making next to nothing on lots of those orders.

 

This is not the way a Dasher should Doordash, and most Dashers eventually learn to not accept all the lowball offers, but there are some Dashers that continue to accept every call offered to them. I can understand the new Dasher that doesn't know any better, but for a Dasher that has been around for a while this just isn't the smart way to do things. Simply put, I would never hire this person as a manager at a business I owned due to their bad decision making.

Who are these Dashers with low acceptance rates?

These Dashers know that accepting every Doordash offer is foolish. These Dashers generally have been Dashing for a while and are not going to waste their time making a delivery for $3 or $4. They are going to wait for the higher paying orders. They are out to make money and their time is valuable to them. These Dashers usually have an acceptance rate in the 30 to 60 percent mark. There are Dashers that are even more picky though, and they pretty much cherry pick their Doordash orders. These Dashers will more likely be in the 10 to 20 percent acceptance rate mark.

There may be a few reasons to accept every Doordash call

Not very long ago I wrote an article about using active time for higher earnings. This strategy only applies to California Dashers, and it can be beneficial for Dashers that are using this strategy to accept every call offered to them. Staying active is the name of the game. You can read more about that here.

Also, Dashers that want to qualify as a Top Rated Dasher may find themselves with a very high acceptance rate. In order to qualify for Top Rated Dasher status, a Dasher must have at least a 70 percent acceptance rate by the end of the month. It is then when Top Rated Dasher status is awarded.

A Dasher that has a low 50 percent acceptance rate with a couple of more days to go may find themselves accepting every call if they want to make the 70 percent acceptance rate that is needed to qualify for Top Rated Dasher status. There is more than this to qualify as a Top Rated Dasher. If you want to learn what those qualifications are and what the perks are click here.

Will Doordash deactivate me and get mad if I decline to many calls?

Nobody can tell you who is getting mad and who is not, but as previously mentioned, Doordash cannot deactivate you for having a low acceptance rate. Whether they get mad or not is irrelevant.  Who is "They" anyways? I really don't think it matters much. If you are smart enough to not accept every order, there's always some other Dasher out there that will accept those cheap offers. Those lowball offers will generally be fulfilled by somebody. You just don't want it to be you.

What about the other Doordash ratings? What do all the Doordash ratings mean?

I'll quickly go through each one:

Customer rating:

This is important and you will want to keep it from going under 4.2. Most people do not find this difficult to do. If you are under 4.2, you are usually doing something very wrong. Are you real late all the time to deliver? Are you rude to the customers? Do you not follow special instructions?

I will add this in for new Dashers because I have seen and heard about this a lot. Sometimes, rookie Dashers will have a low customer rating, and it will take some time to build up more deliveries so that a customer that leaves a bad rating does not impact your ratings score so much. Don't get discouraged and know that it will eventually go up.

Acceptance rate:

Not important at all. The most a Dasher will get out of this is feeling proud of themselves while they look at their 100 percent acceptance rating. Meanwhile, Dashers out there with a 30 percent acceptance rate are taking the well paying calls and making good money. 

Completion rate:

The completion rate is the amount of deliveries that you finish after accepting it. This is a very important rating that can get a Dasher deactivated. A Dasher's completion rate cannot fall below 4.80. 

Again, this is a rating that most Dashers will have no problem with. Sure, stuff happens sometimes and you'll have to get rid of a dash. Everybody has done it. It's no big deal. You have to do what you have to do, but if you're doing it for over 20 percent of the calls that you accept, then there's a problem.

On time or early:

This rating is not important. Doordash keeps track of how many deliveries a Dasher makes on time. I'm going to be honest here, my on time or early percentage has stayed at the same number for a couple of years. It never changes, and I honestly think it does not work.

Lifetime deliveries:

This is not important. It's a fun stat that Doordash has there so that a Dasher can see how many lifetime deliveries they've completed. It's amazing how these deliveries add up throughout the years. There are some Dashers out there with 10,000 or more deliveries. I've even ran across a few claims of over 20,000 deliveries. Again though, the Doordash lifetime deliveries is just a fun rating.