I've felt like quitting so many times in the past week it isn't funny. I've got a list of problems, many related to the new computers. Basically other employees are screwing up and it's costing me money.
Dispatch
On Wednesday, the manager mistakenly assigned my run to another driver. When he was made aware of his error, he didn't correct it. I'm not sure he knew how to reassign the run to the correct driver.
Bad Street List / Out Of Area Deliveries
The street list on the new computer is not as up-to-date as the list on the previous computer was. Due to this, we are taking many deliveries that the computer doesn't think is in our delivery area.
Incidentally, we're also taking more deliveries that really aren't in our area. I took 2 tonight (out of 13) and both stiffed me.
Some people think giving the driver a little money for this will make up for it, but there are many costs involved here, including the cost of the extra gas to drive farther, the time it takes me to drive farther, the other deliveries I could have taken had I gotten back in a normal time.
Wrong Address
Last night one phone girl got the apartment wrong, typing B14 instead of D14. The original driver couldn't find it (of course) and also couldn't call the customer so the order got brought back until the customer called wondering where their food was. I ended up having to take it and we gave it to them for free. Of course they didn't tip. Get the addresses right!
On a similar note, a different phone girl tonight totally butchered the phone number. 474-032-4739. It probably should have been 440-324-739X. Unfortunately the X is important. We ran out of Pepsi and I couldn't call to see if they wanted a different 2-Liter or a credit. Manager Nick had me take a Cherry Pepsi and a Sierra Mist and let them pick. Of course they didn't tip.
History Deleted
Our old computer system had the order history of all of our customers. Last night the same phone girl who messed up the address, took an order and decided arbitrarily, because the customer was laughing and ordered $45 (3 pizzas) that it might be a prank. She and the manager cancelled the order.
Had they asked me, I could have told them that I've delivered to that house at least 20 times in the past couple years. But no, they were too smart to ask for help. So the customer called back eventually, the pizza was over 2 hours late, and do you think I got a tip?
If you've read this long, you deserve a funny story. On one of my deliveries last night, as I stood by the door, I heard a miniature explosion going off behind the house. The guys at the door in their early 20's started laughing. Their younger brother (preteen) then showed up and the guys accused him of "throwing all the fireworks in the fire" and that's exactly what it sounded like.
Saturday I drove 8 hours, took 18 runs, drove 78 miles, and made $46.
Sunday night I drove 6 hours, took 13 runs, drove 67 miles, and made $25.
Note that the night with the 2 out-of-area runs, I got 5.15 miles per run. The other night was a more normal 4.33 miles per run.
Showing posts with label Driver Dispatch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Driver Dispatch. Show all posts
Monday, October 20, 2008
Friday, February 16, 2007
It Pays To Track Your Tips
The other night I had a really slow night. I only had 3 deliveries so it was easy for me to count my tips and to know how much money would take home at the end of the night. But I ended up having an extra $3.95. I will try to explain why.
We have a touch-screen POS (Point Of Sale) / Dispatch system. On our "Dispatch" screen, there are 3 columns. Orders to be dispatched, Drivers In Store, and Drivers Out. When you are ready to leave with an order, you click the order, click your name off the "In Store" list, and click "Dispatch". It moves you (and the order) to the "Out" list.
When you return, you click your name on the "Out" list, click a button that says "Pay Check", and it moves you to the bottom of the "In Store" list. Tough to explain but really pretty simple.
Well one glitch in our system is that if there is a credit card order that has not yet been dispatched, and the manager updates the bank deposit information, the credit card order disappears from the list and cannot be dispatched.
At this point, the manager has to give the driver who takes the order credit for an extra run, plus (if there is a tip on the credit card), the driver must be "tipped out" as a server to get their tip money. Not a big deal. This happenned to me on Friday night. The customer tipped in cash so all I had to do was get the $0.95 per run from the manager. Pretty simple.
Well anyways, at the end of the night while checking out I realized I had about $4 more than I expected to have. I looked closely at my checkout sheet and saw that I was being given credit for the run and also the tip ($3) on a credit card order that I did not remember delivering.
I knew that the only credit card order that I took tipped in cash (as I mentioned above) and it would not show up on my check-out since I was not able to dispatch it to myself.
As I thought about the situation, I remembered that the next run after my credit card delivery was another credit card delivery that the other driver was able to dispatch. However, since I was not dispatched, my name was still at the top of the "In Store" list.
The other driver must have carelessly clicked my name instead of his own when he dispatched himself.
Now most of the time, seeing 2 names on the "In Store" list when he knew I was out on a delivery would make another driver stop to think. But recently, some people have been "cheating" the system by returning drivers while they are still out on delivery, in order to make our on-time % look better. So when he saw 2 drivers on the "In Store" list, he probably didn't give it a second thought.
Since I'm an honest guy, I will be giving Brad the $3.95 next time I see him. But as I told the manager that night, if that was my $3.95 that was missing, we would have been arguing about it. I log all of my deliveries and my tips, so I always know within a dollar how much money I should have at the end of the night.
We have a touch-screen POS (Point Of Sale) / Dispatch system. On our "Dispatch" screen, there are 3 columns. Orders to be dispatched, Drivers In Store, and Drivers Out. When you are ready to leave with an order, you click the order, click your name off the "In Store" list, and click "Dispatch". It moves you (and the order) to the "Out" list.
When you return, you click your name on the "Out" list, click a button that says "Pay Check", and it moves you to the bottom of the "In Store" list. Tough to explain but really pretty simple.
Well one glitch in our system is that if there is a credit card order that has not yet been dispatched, and the manager updates the bank deposit information, the credit card order disappears from the list and cannot be dispatched.
At this point, the manager has to give the driver who takes the order credit for an extra run, plus (if there is a tip on the credit card), the driver must be "tipped out" as a server to get their tip money. Not a big deal. This happenned to me on Friday night. The customer tipped in cash so all I had to do was get the $0.95 per run from the manager. Pretty simple.
Well anyways, at the end of the night while checking out I realized I had about $4 more than I expected to have. I looked closely at my checkout sheet and saw that I was being given credit for the run and also the tip ($3) on a credit card order that I did not remember delivering.
I knew that the only credit card order that I took tipped in cash (as I mentioned above) and it would not show up on my check-out since I was not able to dispatch it to myself.
As I thought about the situation, I remembered that the next run after my credit card delivery was another credit card delivery that the other driver was able to dispatch. However, since I was not dispatched, my name was still at the top of the "In Store" list.
The other driver must have carelessly clicked my name instead of his own when he dispatched himself.
Now most of the time, seeing 2 names on the "In Store" list when he knew I was out on a delivery would make another driver stop to think. But recently, some people have been "cheating" the system by returning drivers while they are still out on delivery, in order to make our on-time % look better. So when he saw 2 drivers on the "In Store" list, he probably didn't give it a second thought.
Since I'm an honest guy, I will be giving Brad the $3.95 next time I see him. But as I told the manager that night, if that was my $3.95 that was missing, we would have been arguing about it. I log all of my deliveries and my tips, so I always know within a dollar how much money I should have at the end of the night.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
