Should the delivery person bring the food to the apartment door? iFood finally took a position on this, but only after a controversy in Brasília, which led motoboys to honk their horns in protest last Sunday (5). Both the company and the freight forwarders seem to agree on one point: motoboys are not waiters.
“There is no obligation for the delivery person to go up to the apartments, but we recommend that customers go down to receive the order”, says Leonardo Fabricio, senior coordinator of branding and valuation of the delivery person at iFood, on the company’s official blog🇧🇷
The statement also recalls that this is a way of showing “respect for the work of the delivery man or woman”, in addition to being “one of the kindnesses we can do in our daily lives”.
And more:
This simple attitude speeds up the work of couriers, who can only pick up a new order after completing the delivery of the current one. In addition, the delivery person cannot always go upstairs because he does not have a place to park his bike or motorcycle on the street.
In turn, Alessandro da Conceição, president of Amae-DF (Association of Autonomous Motorcycle Freight Drivers and Application Deliverers of the Federal District and Surroundings), tells the metropolises🇧🇷
“No motoboy is obliged to go up to the client’s apartment. They go up to speed up the delivery. The app itself directs customers to find the delivery guy.”
“Saying to go up and he doesn’t go up”
How did we get here? Well, a video went viral on TikTok showing an iFood customer angry with the delivery man, who refused to go up to the apartment to take delivery. One filmed the other on the cell phone, recording the discussion.
For context: iFood asks for a confirmation code – usually the last four digits of the mobile number – to ensure the delivery actually reached its destination. In this conversation, the customer refused to share the code.
The video is still available on social media, but we decided not to embed it here so as not to further expose the delivery man’s name. Below is a transcript of what happened:
Client: Saying it’s to go up and he doesn’t go up. He doesn’t know how to see the address, he ended up at the church instead of coming here. When he arrived, he refused to go up, and it was written there that he was supposed to go up, that was the option. He wouldn’t talk to me on the intercom, and he still refused to come upstairs. So here, oh [nome do entregador]I will send the complaint to iFood.
Deliveryman: (Hands over the bag) You can send it. Pass me the code there, please?
Client: (turns away and stops recording) I won’t pass the code.
Deliveryman: Oxe, pass the code yes, partner!
Client: No, I won’t, no.
Deliveryman: Paaaaaassa the code! (takes the bag from the customer’s hands)
Client: Stole from my hand, here, oh!
Deliveryman: You’re going crazy, are you? You’re going crazy, are you?
Client: He stole the food from my hand… let’s go again. (starts recording video again on cell phone)
Deliveryman: You saw it there, right? He said he won’t pass the code…
Client: He stole the food from my hand, I wanted to take the food and he didn’t deliver the food.
Deliveryman: Pass the code, dad, to fix it in your head, bro… Tsk.
Client: So he stole the food from my hand, then he will answer for that. You can keep the food, I’ll ask for a refund. He stole the food from my hand, he didn’t give it to me, and he’s going to answer for it now.
Deliveryman: Dude… don’t get it over your head, “cumpadi”…
This happened on Sunday (5) around lunchtime. At night, about 150 couriers gathered at the site and held a protest that involved honking horns and even fireworks.
This is one of the horn videos (be careful with the high volume):
According to the president of Amae-DF, the video recorded by the delivery man generated “revolt” in the motoboy groups. “The customer accused the courier of theft, and he didn’t want to pass on the code”, said Alessandro to metropolises🇧🇷 The delivery person was instructed to file a police report.
“Almost no delivery person likes to go upstairs to deliver food”
This is not a new complaint. Other videos – like the example below – went viral on TikTok showing “loose” customers who don’t want to go downstairs to get their food:
And in March of this year, the Technoblog received the report from reader Carlos Rocca, from Porto Alegre, with photos of the phrase “Motoboy is not a waiter” written on doors and on a wall:
Carlos explains:
I received three images of different condominiums (one is where I live, I am part of a group of residents) with internal graffiti “Motoboy is not a waiter”. Usually when I order food, I don’t let the motoboy go upstairs, I pick it up at the front desk. When the delivery is tracked, I go down first, and I see the movement of couriers (I live in a condominium with 1,020 apartments distributed in two entrances).
While I’m waiting for my snack, I see the posture of the delivery people in waiting and sometimes having to go up with the snack. Almost no delivery person likes to go upstairs to deliver the food. Those at home think they are “paying” for this service, and want to have food delivered to their apartment door. Whoever is delivering it receives the same thing to deliver at the reception or to have to waste time and deliver it to the door of the apartment.
I believe it’s past time for iFood, which is the main player in this market, to implement some extra fee system or at least establish in the terms of use where delivery should take place.
Yes, there are some cases where the customer would really have a hard time getting down to pick up the delivery – such as an elderly or disabled person. But the cases mentioned above have nothing to do with that: they are users of iFood and similar apps who don’t want to go out of their way to get their food.
I order delivery more often than I should – even the doormen in my apartment building know that! – but I try to be as agile as possible to pick up the delivery. I keep an eye on the app to know when the order is close; and when he arrives, in most cases, I’m either waiting downstairs or taking the (old and slow) elevator down. Occasionally, one of the motoboys comments something like: “if every customer was like this, it would be better for us!”.
They say that, but I think this should be the basic treatment for all deliveryman. The motoboy’s remuneration depends on how many trips he makes between the restaurant and the user: that is, you end up jeopardizing a person’s livelihood just by leaving him waiting too long.
And compensation can be an issue for couriers. Take the example of Marcelo Castelli, who works in Rio de Janeiro: in one day, he travels 160 km for 14 hours, but only receives R$ 50. He tells the newspaper The day who sometimes sleeps at a gas station instead of going home in order to save fuel money. Even food is affected: “we only eat a snack and look at that… Coxinha for lunch and another one for dinner; or he doesn’t even have dinner, he only has lunch”.
Unfortunately, not everyone is really aware of this. I hope that iFood’s official positioning makes more people understand that, in fact, a motoboy is not a waiter.
https://tecnoblog.net/noticias/2022/12/10/motoboy-nao-e-garcom/