Cancelling an order can result in a bad experience for your customers and have a negative impact on your business.
Here are some steps to reduce the number of cancelled orders:
1. Ingredient unavailability: keep your stock levels up to date, and mark any items as unavailable when you run out of them.
2. Accurate opening hours: update your opening hours to reflect any days you will be closed or intend to close earlier. Consider your kitchen operating times when setting your hours in the app:
Your opening time should be when your team is ready to accept and immediately start preparing an order.
Your closing time should be when your team is able to accept ‘last orders’, allowing time for preparation and rider pick up.
3. Busy kitchen: if you’re dealing with exceptional circumstances, such as equipment breakdowns or staff shortages, use Busy Mode to help you manage order volume. This will give you more time to prepare the orders.
4. Closed for orders: if you have an emergency and your business cannot operate as usual, consider temporarily marking yourself as closed until everything is back to normal.
5. Marketplace+ Partners: make sure your delivery areas are updated so you only receive orders from areas you can deliver to. You can change your delivery zone in the ‘areas and fee’ section on Hub.
Why is it important to avoid cancellations?
For customers: Cancelled orders leave customers disappointed and hungry, resulting in negative reviews on the platform. It can also hurt your business reputation and revenue. Customers are less likely to order from you again if they had a bad experience.
For riders: Cancellations negatively impact riders who may have travelled to your business. If this happens frequently, riders may choose not to accept orders from you in the future.
What’s the difference between rejections and cancellations?
Rejection: when the order is declined at the initial stage, when it is first sent to the tablet or Point Of Sale (POS) system. Partners have 10 minutes to accept or reject the order, or the system will automatically reject it.
Cancellation: when the order is initially accepted, and then declined at a later stage (e.g. the dish is no longer available).
Learn more about our cancellations policy.