Most food delivery drivers agree that McDonald’s is their least favourite place to pick up food. Compared to standard dine-in restaurants, picking up food from a fast-food restaurant can be frustrating.
Find out why Uber Eats drivers hate fast food and how to avoid some of the most common complaints related to taking fast food orders.
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Fast Food Restaurants Have Longer Lines
One of the most common complaints about fast food restaurants is the lines. Picking up orders from fast-food restaurants often takes longer compared to dine-in restaurants. Some fast-food restaurants also wait until you arrive to start preparing the order, and you may need to wait for another 10 to 15 minutes to pick up the food.
You are less likely to deal with lines at a dine-in restaurant. You can often walk in and pick up the food within a few minutes, and some restaurants even have dedicated spots for picking up food app deliveries.
The base fare for each delivery typically includes compensation for total distance and time. You get paid more when you wait longer. However, orders that take too long reduce your potential earnings for the day, as you cannot complete as many deliveries.
Mistakes Are More Common at Fast Food Restaurants
Studies have found that the accuracy of fast food orders is declining. Wrong orders are becoming more common, which adds to the challenges of picking up food from a fast-food restaurant.
McDonald’s has an average order accuracy of 84.8%, which means that 15.2% of orders have wrong or missing items. KFC had the lowest accuracy, with just 66.1% of orders fulfilled correctly. Fast food restaurant workers work fast, which increases the risk of messing up a customer’s order. After picking up the order, you need to check the contents of the bags. If the workers forget to add a menu item, you need to wait longer.
Every restaurant handles wrong orders differently. If you visit the drive-thru window, you may need to pull over to a reserved spot and wait for someone to bring out the missing item.
Fast Food Orders Often Result in Lower Earnings
Completing deliveries from fast-food restaurants often results in less pay than picking up orders from sit-down restaurants. The base fare accounts for the delivery time, and however, it also accounts for the distance of the trip.
Uber Eats and Door Dash have a five-mile delivery radius, but most people live less than a mile in a fast-food restaurant. The app automatically selects the nearest location when ordering from McDonald’s or any other fast-food restaurant with multiple locations.
The distance is closer to the customer’s address, which reduces your base fare, and orders take longer, limiting how many orders you can complete each day. Fast-food customers are also notoriously lousy tippers, and these drawbacks add up to less pay.
How to Deal with the Hassle of Picking up Food at McDonald’s
Picking up food at McDonald’s and other fast-food restaurants may result in longer lines, mistakes, and lower earnings. Unfortunately, there is not much that you can do to control what happens when you pick up food. But before you give up and deactivate your account, there are some ways to lessen some of the hassles.
Yet, you can avoid delivering food during peak times. If you accept an order during rush hour, you can expect to spend more time waiting for the food. Dinnertime is often the busiest part of the day for fast-food restaurants, and the average accuracy drops from a high of 87% at mid-morning to a low of 80.3% at dinner.
If your availability requires you to drive during busy hours, you can decline requests for orders from fast-food restaurants. Remember that Uber Eats and other food delivery apps may discreetly penalize you for declining orders. Drivers who frequently decline orders may receive fewer pings, limiting their earning potential.
Some Tips for Taking Orders from Fast Food Restaurants
- Figure out which chain locations tend to be slower than others, and avoid those if possible. This happens a lot because some places deal with more orders. Also, some locations seem to be run better than others.
- Learn what the pick-up procedure is so you don’t waste time. Some chains have a pick-up area separate from the main customer section, and others expect you to pick up as any other customer would.
- Have a time limit in mind for how long you want to wait for an order to be ready. For me, it’s about 10-15 minutes at most, especially during a busy part of the day. Yes, if you cancel for “Excessive wait time”, someone else is going to get that order, but you might be missing out on more lucrative orders while you’re waiting 20 minutes for the kitchen to make your order.
Summary
Most delivery drivers dislike picking up food from McDonald’s and other fast-food chains. Fast food is meant to be quick but takes longer when picking up an order for a food delivery app.
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Fast food restaurants are also less accurate compared to sit-down restaurants. Wrong orders are more common, which can limit your potential tips. To reduce the risk of incorrect orders and long lines, you can decline all deliveries from fast-food restaurants or avoid driving during dinnertime.
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