DoorDash

As far as the gig economy goes, restaurant delivery services may occupy a space only behind ride share services in terms of prevalence. As a result, the formula for how these apps operate are pretty well established. Creating an account gives you a list of restaurants in the company's network, allows you to place an order, and relays that information to a contract driver who picks up your food and brings it to your home or office. That means that companies live and die on the little things they do and how well they establish themselves from the competition in small issues. DoorDash stands at the vanguard of prominent restaurant delivery services, and it does a respectable job of serving its customers and making the delivery experience far more convenient. But there are a few things that set it apart from the competition. One of the big selling points when you're choosing a food delivery service is the volume of restaurants available to you, and DoorDash does a few important things right in this regard. They've done a phenomenal job of building out relationships with national chains. While their competitors often deal exclusively with local restaurants, DoorDash's negotiations on a national level allows them to provide access to more casual dining chains and fast food joints. This creates a generally more expansive network than what you'll find from the competition, and it's especially important if you live in more suburban or rural settings, where smaller and high-quality restaurants are less readily available. This also means that DoorDash offers a wider service network in most of its delivery areas, whereas some of the competition are either not available or will charge you an arm and a leg for moving well outside of their designated delivery zones. As far as the app itself, it's very functionally designed, if a bit rote for what you might expect. The simple grid layout plays a close resemblance to other food delivery apps, but it's a system that works, and it works well. It's typically a little cleaner and more polished than the competition, and the screens that allow you to customize your order or choose is a lot cleaner and more smoothly designed. All in all, the ordering experience through DoorDash is quick and breezy, and it's easy to get in touch with the customer service team if you have any problems. There's also a dedicated driver tracking system that runs off their GPS, so you can know precisely where your food is and get a more accurate of when you can expect it to arrive at your door. One great aspect of the DoorDash app design is a group ordering system that allows multiple users in a home or office to do their own ordering and combine them into a single ticket without unnecessary complications.