As a savvy consumer and veteran of the on-demand delivery world, I‘ve become intimately familiar with the rating systems used by popular platforms like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash. So when I first started using Grubhub to order my favorite local cuisine, I was surprised to discover that the app doesn‘t allow customers to rate their drivers at all.
At first, this struck me as an oversight. How can Grubhub ensure quality service without direct feedback from the end users? But as I dug deeper into the company‘s unique approach to driver ratings, I discovered there‘s more to the story. In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll share my findings and insights on how Grubhub‘s unconventional rating system works, and what it means for everyone involved.
The Grubhub Ecosystem by the Numbers
To put Grubhub‘s driver rating system into context, let‘s start with some key statistics about the company‘s overall business:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Active Diners | 31.4 million |
| Gross Food Sales | $2.3 billion (Q2 2022) |
| Partnered Restaurants | 320,000+ |
| Market Share | 17% |
Sources: Grubhub Q2 2022 Earnings Release, Bloomberg Second Measure
As these numbers demonstrate, Grubhub is a major player in the fiercely competitive food delivery space. The company‘s 320,000+ restaurant partners and 31.4 million active diners generate over $2 billion in quarterly gross food sales.
However, Grubhub‘s 17% market share puts it in third place behind DoorDash (57%) and Uber Eats (26%). In this tight race, delivering a seamless customer experience is crucial. So why has Grubhub forgone the customer-driven rating model used by most of its peers?
Grubhub‘s Customer-Free Driver Ratings
The core of Grubhub‘s unconventional approach is that customers have zero input on driver performance ratings. That‘s right: no after-delivery prompts to rate your driver, no thumbs up/down buttons, no commenting on the courier‘s conduct. For consumers used to reviewing every step of a transaction, it‘s a jarring omission.
Instead, Grubhub leaves driver ratings entirely up to restaurants. After a driver picks up an order, the restaurant has the option to give them a star rating using the Grubhub for Restaurants tablet. Criteria may include punctuality, professionalism, and care in handling the food. Highly-rated drivers are more likely to receive future orders from that establishment.
This system calls for a mental shift for consumers. We‘re used to thinking of ourselves as the ultimate arbiter of service quality. Cutting the customer out of the rating process feels like a loss of control and transparency. But seen from another angle, it‘s a strategic choice by Grubhub to empower and prioritize their restaurant partners.
The Restaurant Perspective
To understand why Grubhub has adopted this unorthodox approach, I spoke with several restaurant owners and managers who use the platform. They offered valuable insights into how the driver rating system impacts their businesses.
"Honestly, we rarely think about customer ratings when it comes to delivery drivers," said Jessica T., owner of a popular pizza chain. "Our biggest concern is making sure the drivers show up on time and transport the food safely. The Grubhub tablet lets us flag any issues on that front, so we can make sure our best drivers keep getting dispatched to us."
Other restaurateurs echoed this sentiment, noting that a reliable driver can make or break the delivery experience for their customers. By giving restaurants direct input on driver quality, Grubhub is essentially saying: "We trust you to be the eyes and ears on the ground."
It‘s a vote of confidence in restaurants‘ judgment — and perhaps a subtle jab at the idea that customers always know best. After all, a 4-star driver rating from a customer could be based on subjective factors like personality or small talk, while a restaurant‘s 4-star rating is more likely to reflect concrete metrics like timeliness and order accuracy.
Driver (Dis)Incentives
Of course, for this system to work, it needs to have teeth. Drivers need to feel motivated to earn high marks from restaurants, and face consequences for consistently poor performance.
Grubhub is somewhat tight-lipped about exactly how driver ratings factor into their dispatch and deactivation algorithms. But piecing together clues from driver forums and interviews, a general picture emerges.
Highly-rated drivers seem to get first dibs on orders from their best-reviewed restaurants, setting up a virtuous cycle: the driver is more likely to accept the order quickly, show up on time, and handle it professionally, leading to more positive ratings and future assignments.
On the flip side, drivers with a pattern of low restaurant ratings may find their access to that establishment‘s orders throttled or cut off entirely. And while Grubhub has backed away from its old policy of deactivating drivers solely for low acceptance rates, consistently declining orders can still limit a driver‘s earning potential and potentially lead to account suspension when combined with other risk factors like high cancellation rates or customer complaints.
Source: Bloomberg Second Measure
Room for Improvement?
No system is perfect, of course. And Grubhub‘s driver rating model has some clear potential drawbacks and pitfalls.
For one, it‘s not fully transparent to consumers. If I have a phenomenal or terrible experience with my Grubhub driver, it‘s not intuitive that I need to convey that sentiment through the restaurant review rather than a dedicated driver rating. Grubhub could risk isolating customers who feel cut out of the loop.
There‘s also little visibility for drivers themselves. Most report having no idea what their average restaurant rating is, making it tough to track their own performance and identify areas for improvement.
Additionally, putting the onus on busy restaurant staff to stop and leave driver feedback after each order could result in sparse and sporadic ratings. A driver‘s overall score could be skewed by a small sample size of their most memorable (either positive or negative) interactions.
Even with these caveats, I have to give Grubhub credit for thinking outside the box with their driver rating approach. It‘s a bold bet on harnessing the wisdom of restaurant partners over potentially fickle customers. And in an industry where actually preparing high-quality food consistently is arguably more important than last-mile delivery, empowering restaurants as quality control gatekeepers has a certain logic to it.
Separating from the Pack
Grubhub‘s divergent path on driver ratings is even more striking when compared to the standard practices of its main competitors, Uber Eats and DoorDash.
Both of those services feature prominent customer-submitted ratings for drivers, reinforcing the idea of the all-powerful consumer. Uber Eats drivers must maintain a minimum 4.7 out of 5 stars to avoid potential deactivation, while DoorDash sets its performance threshold at just 4.2 stars.
Grubhub‘s decision to forgo customer ratings could be seen as a risky move in this hyper-competitive market. Yet it may also represent a point of distinction and differentiation as the company seeks to build stronger ties with restaurant allies.
As gig economy and logistics expert Barb H. told me: "Grubhub seems to be betting that leveraging restaurants as their eyes and ears on the ground, at the point of handoff, is ultimately more scalable and brand-aligned than putting all their trust in post-delivery customer reviews. It‘s a gamble, but if it pays off in the form of enhanced restaurant loyalty and operational efficiency, it could give them a unique edge."
A Fork in the Road?
All of this raises some fascinating questions about the future of work, customer service, and platform governance in the on-demand delivery space.
Will we see a continued divergence between platforms that prioritize direct customer input on individual workers and those that delegate quality control to business partners? Will consumers come to accept a reduced role in rating their service providers as part of the "hand-off" to restaurants or other entities?
At least in Grubhub‘s case, the answers may hinge on whether the company‘s focus on restaurant relationships proves to be a competitive advantage or a dangerous blind spot to the end user experience. As the food delivery wars continue to heat up, the recipe for success is still very much in flux.
One thing is clear: as a discerning Grubhub customer, my role is not to rate my driver, but to savor the food and reflect on the overall experience. The next time I open the app to place an order, I‘ll be thinking about more than just what‘s on the menu. I‘ll be contemplating the intricate ecosystem of restaurants, drivers, and algorithms working behind the scenes to determine how promptly and reliably that meal shows up at my door.
For now, I‘m content to sit back and let Grubhub‘s great restaurant experiment play out. If and when the time comes for consumers to reassert our right to rate every aspect of our on-demand existence, I‘ll be ready — one star at a time.
