What Should a Dasher do if a Restaurant Forgets Items?

It will eventually happen to anyone that dashes long enough. You make a delivery like you normally do. You then slide delivered as you drive your car away, but then a text comes in on your phone. It's the customer that you just dropped off to. This customer is saying that some of their items are missing. What do you do? You have choices here on how to handle this.

Dasher needs to decide what the best response should be

The response that a Dasher takes will have a lot to do with what the customer has exactly texted. If the customer has texted that their two drinks are missing, and you look over and see a cup holder with their two drinks in your back seat, it would usually be best to go back and give them their drinks. 

Of course this will depend on how far away you are. If you're a couple of blocks away, taking the customer their drinks is the right thing to do. If you are 10 miles away, and it has been a while since you dropped off, and the customer is barely texting you to let you know, I would advise not to drive back.

Of course if your conscious is bothering you, you can take the drinks back. To me, this is simply a case of forgetting some items when delivering, and it was a sincere mistake. As long as it don't happen too often, a Dasher shouldn't worry about something like this.

The Dasher that ignores and does not answer customer texts or phone calls

In the above example, being 10 miles away, it would probably be best to not answer any texts or phone calls from the customer. Why? Well, there is nothing that you can do for them (Unless you are going to drive back.) It would be best to just let them contact Doordash to let them know that their drinks were missing. Again, as long as something like this doesn't happen often, a Dasher will be alright.

 I have known many Dashers that never answer texts or phone calls for any reason. One guy that I know has told me that the only time a Doordash customer tries to contact them after delivery is to complain about something. Hence, there's no reason to answer any texts or phone calls. His take was that he already delivered, and his job was done.

The Dasher that helps the customer out about their missing food

Personally, I usually try to help the customer out when I can. I will reply to them, and I will usually advise them on what they can do. I mean, there's not much I can do about their missing items. I am not the one that packed their food, and I didn't know anything was missing.

 

If they want me to go back to the restaurant, I will tell them that I can't do that because I have other deliveries that I am on at the moment. I will tell them the only thing I can tell them. I'll say to contact Doordash and let them know that a few items were missing. Sometimes, they don't know how to contact Doordash so I'll give them the Doordash phone number. Most customers are thankful for the help and that ends our conversation.

As a Dasher why didn't you know items were missing?

Unfortunately, it is usually impossible for a Dasher to know that items are missing. Why? Well, most merchants have the food bags sealed up when they hand them to us. As Dashers, we just have to trust the merchants that they got everything right.

I remember one time after helping a lady out about her missing items. She thanked me and said she would contact Doordash. I said okay and thought the conversation was over. She had to throw in one last reply though and thought she was giving me some sound advice. 

She texted me "Just for future reference, you should always check the food to make sure everything is there." Of course I rolled my eyes to that. Yeah, just break open all the seals to all customer's food bags!

Why do Doordash merchants sometimes forget customer's items?

Often, it is just a worker forgetting to place a certain item in the bag. Other times it will be a whole missing bag. There will be a Doordash order that contains multiple bags and the merchant will only give one bag. This will of course make a customer unhappy when they discover they didn't receive half of their order. It all comes down to human error.

The Doordash customer that wants the Dasher to go back and pick up the missing items

There are times when the Doordash customer thinks that the Dasher can just go back to the merchant and pick up the missing items. Unfortunately, for the customer, that's not the way things work. Many of these customers don't realize that Dashers aren't some hourly employees just trying to kill time.

A Dasher may have just took a half hour making a delivery and made $10. They are not going to go back to the restaurant with no pay while wasting an hour of their time just because the merchant made a mistake and didn't put the french fries in the bag. A Dasher should never under any circumstances go back to a restaurant to pick up missing items.

The customer that lies about missing items

Most customers are honest people, but it is very possible that a customer is not telling the truth about missing items. I once had someone text me after delivery and ask me where their drink was. I responded and told them that there was no drink with their order.

They asked me if I was sure, and even though I didn't have the order on my screen anymore, I knew 100 percent for a fact that they didn't have a drink with their order. They then said okay and that was that. 

In this case, the customer probably wasn't trying to pull a fast one. He could have legitimately thought that a drink was coming with his food. Could have been an honest mistake. But, unfortunately, there are those out there always looking to scam and get free stuff. We must always be alert to this.