Earn on your own schedule

2023 New Zealand Delivery Person Advisory Forum 1

5 June 2023 / New Zealand

In February this year, we held our bi-annual Delivery Person Advisory Forum in Auckland with 14 Delivery Person Advisors from across New Zealand to discuss the topics Earnings and Earner Model Preferences.

Throughout the day-long session, Advisors shared various insights and issues surrounding Earning with Uber Eats. The Advisors were able to provide real-world examples and bring context to some of the problems faced while delivering and helped to explain how the cost of delivering, merchant wait times, Quests and batched deliveries impact earnings when delivering.

To start off the Forum, Advisors told us what they enjoy most about delivering with Uber Eats.

Some of the highlights discussed include;

How easy and intuitive the app is to use
Uber Eats’ safety and compliance features and policies
The autonomy to cancel deliveries
Providing great customer service to local communities
The flexibility that delivering with Uber Eats provides

Have Your Say Survey Results

We want to thank the 90+ Delivery People who shared their views on Earnings with their Advisor Representatives in the Have Your Say Survey, which ran before the forum. These insights contributed greatly to the discussion and helped us better understand the challenges faced and what we can work on to improve the earning experience.

Feedback from the Have Your Say Survey revealed that:*

Long distance trips mean you have to travel further for the next delivery and the earnings received are not worth the travel back. Not having any indications in-app of where higher demand areas might be is not efficient and contributes to km travelled and time spent not on trip with no earnings.

“I fell [sic] on long trips earning should be hire [sic] I did 34k for 17.00 dollars then need to return to find more work”
$3 payment for second delivery in a batched order is not sufficient. This is extra time and distance travelled by the earner for the second delivery, but the pay does not feel comparable to the additional effort.

“The fact that in a batched trip we are delivering to the second person for free (+$3.00 is not good enough). If one order has to be cancelled then we need to cancel the other order too because of the faulty pay system for batched trips.”
Earnings do not feel like they have increased in line with the cost of living.

“Fares should be higher to help cover delivery costs (including car maintenance). Also those of us that drive EVs should be rewarded in some way (showing that Uber is committed to the environment).”
Quest incentives are inconsistent and hard to achieve, particularly in smaller cities or cities with lower demand..

“Some of the quests seems [sic] hard to achieve in smaller cities. i.e earn $65 for completing 45 deliveries over the weekend.”
Merchants don’t seem to value Delivery People’s time and prioritise other orders, increasing Wait Time.

“Restaurants, like in our area one particular McDonald’s, often prioritize their drive thru and in store customers leaving uber drivers waiting for food. We are Loosing [sic] money from lost fares. Damaging our income potential and creating bad time responses for us to wear the results of. How do we effectively get these restaurants to cease this behavior. [sic]”

*Verbatim feedback has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Forum discussion on Earnings

The results of the Have Your Say Survey helped lay the foundation for the discussion on Earnings during the Forum. During the session, Advisors brought forward their perspectives on the current cost of delivering and shared the challenges they have faced with different products and features including Wait Time, Batched Deliveries and long distance deliveries.

Some of the most notable feedback from this discussion included;

The spike in the cost of living in New Zealand has increased fuel prices and has impacted expenses for Delivery People significantly
The impact of wait times on earnings and the customer end of the transaction
Frustration with wait time incurred at drop off while waiting for consumer to collect order
Delivery expectations from consumers (apartment buildings, waiting at drop off, confusion in consumer messaging etc.)
Lack of consistency with the way merchants process, prepare and ask Delivery People to collect orders.
The use of the Uber Eats’ order preparation tools seems to depend on how busy the merchant is and who the manager is at the time.

To address these issues, Advisors suggested the following solutions:

Poor performing merchants to receive extra training and merchants that are part of a chain to learn from better performing locations
More transparency about delays to end customers so that delivery people are not blamed for merchant delays
Do more to offset the increased fuel prices for delivery people and adjust earnings for inflation
Rework quest promotions so that all earners have something to achieve
Instead of quests, Uber Eats app could direct delivery people to popular areas where there is more work
Reduce the minimum wait time for customers from five minutes to two minutes
Provide information on customers on handover courtesy and what is unreasonable to ask a delivery person to do i.e. deliver to the back of a property with large dogs in the dark

Forum discussion on Earner Model Preferences

Along with Earnings, in the first Forum Advisors discussed Earner Model Preferences. Advisors heard from our NZ Public Policy Manager about the current state of the Uber Eats contractor model and chatted about social benefits and consultation methods to better highlight the value of flexibility and the challenges that come with being an Independent Contractor.

At the start of the discussion, Advisors were asked to rank a list of social benefits in order of importance for them. Of the 14 Advisors, 11 ranked a Guaranteed Minimum Earnings Standard as their first priority out of the list. The feedback heard in this part of the session highlighted the importance of having an earnings safety net and Advisors felt that it was important to have a minimum that worked in a system that was easy enough to understand.

Other insights raised during the discussion included:

Minimum earnings would draw more people to work on the platform. This in turn would improve the quality of the service for end users
Increasing customer satisfaction will increase demand, improving business for Uber Eats overall
Bringing in a minimum wage for on-trip time, this would make the platform fairer for delivery people who work in regional and more remote areas
Working to a fixed schedule for higher earnings would not be worth the loss of flexibility (13 of 14 agreed with this)
Uber Eats should utilise the app to survey people who want to be involved and continue to use the Advisory Forums, as well as more informal round table meetings with delivery people, to shape the way they represent delivery people when speaking to government.
Uber Eats should be doing more to engage delivery people in order to provide adequate representation of their interests

These are invaluable insights that will continue to help us in Policy and Legislative discussions around the future of the gig economy so that we can highlight what Delivery People tell us they want!

Members of the Uber Eats Operations team were present on the day of the Forum to hear the feedback from Advisors and work to digest this into actionable recommendations. Since the Forum, we have already begun work on some key changes, focused around the pain points shared on the day. Some of this work includes a review of the minimum amount offered for batched deliveries, improvements to merchant wait time (particularly for fast food restaurants) and updates to our support offerings.

Closing the Loop: The Pit Stop

We want to thank all the Delivery People that participated in the first forum, from the Advisors who provided their time and perspectives to those who provided their feedback during the Have Your Say Survey.

We are working to continue to prioritise the insights heard and there are still lots of exciting updates coming in the next few months and throughout 2023. We are eager to continue finding opportunities to improve the delivery experience and have shared updates on our progress through the recent Pit Stop, a quarterly newsletter that focuses on the actions we’ve taken to address feedback from you.

How can I participate in future Advisory Forums?

The next Advisory forum will be in September 2023 and there are two ways to get involved and provide feedback on your experience with delivering with Uber Eats.

Stay tuned for further communications on how you can share your feedback by booking and attending an Open Hours session in June-July to speak to one of the Advisors directly on selected topics or by filling out the Have Your Say Survey in August 2023.

There will also be opportunities to apply to be an Advisor in 2025 to represent your Delivery Person community. Stay tuned for more announcements closer to the date.

Learn more

Posted by Uber Eats New Zealand

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