As tonight’s snow started to fall, so did our interest in food shopping or otherwise procuring our own dinner. But then we thought: Wait, is it OK to send a delivery driver out in this mess to obtain food on our behalf? Are we monsters?
We reached out to Bite Squad‘s vice president of marketing, Craig Key, to get his company’s official take on bad weather-food ordering, and here it is:
“Should customers feel guilty about using Bite Squad in bad weather?
No! I don’t think customers should feel guilty – it’s our goal to serve our customers and bring them just what they want! We do hope they can have a little extra patience on bad weather days, as these can be really complicated from a logistics standpoint.
Is bad weather a good thing for delivery?
In many ways, yes! Especially bad weather that keeps people from going out, but isn’t so bad that it makes conditions unsafe. A little rain or snow is great, a blizzard or a hurricane is more difficult. We see a clear correlation that the worse weather gets, the more demand there is for delivery. In fact, one of the reasons restaurants love us is that we naturally even out the peaks and valleys. When whether is good, most restaurants don’t have a hard time filling their tables. When whether is bad, they still have a full cook-staff on duty, but not a full house. Bite Squad (and other restaurant delivery services) is the perfect balance to solve that problem.
FAQs
- Do you charge more during bad weather? – No, although some RDS’s may have “surge” pricing or similar, our prices stay the same as long as we can operate. If you’re feeling extra generous, you can always give your driver an extra strong tip (in the app or in person).
- How long should I expect to wait? – On some busy nights we may have wait times over 90 minutes, on bad weather days if it gets any longer than that we may temporarily stop accepting orders until we can get caught up and get our wait times under control.
- Do you close in bad weather? – We try hard not to, but safety is always going to be our top priority so if drivers can’t be out on the road safely, we will have to close.
- Are all options available in bad weather? – Sometimes we will need to shrink the zone slightly to keep our drivers operating in a smaller radius. This avoids sending drivers on long routes w/ more risk of accident or getting stuck away from help.
- Why is my order stuck in “sending to restaurant” mode? – When we are experiencing delays, we will wait to send your order to a restaurant until we know we can get a driver there when it’s hot and fresh. We don’t want your order to sit for 20 minutes before we get there, so we may wait to send it in until we’ve got someone lined up to get it. This may be frustrating as a customer, but ultimately it helps make sure your food is as hot/fresh as possible. “
Some more Qs: what happens if a driver gets hurt or damages their car while working for bite squad in crappy weather? Do they have health insurance or car insurance covered by the company? Do they get sick time while they’re recovering? Do they get paid by the hour (so, more when out in bad weather) or by delivery?