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Help promote faster deliveries with a seamless handoff process
Learn how to create a more seamless delivery handoff process with help from a new metric in your Uber Eats Manager dashboard: avoidable courier wait time.
An inefficient handoff can lead to late deliveries, lukewarm food, and unhappy customers. Long courier wait times may signal issues—but with so many moving parts, it’s tough to know what’s in your control.
Read on to learn how our new metric, avoidable courier wait time, can help you:
Pinpoint preventable delays
Take targeted steps to improve your handoff process
Promote an improved delivery experience
Why does a seamless handoff process matter?
A seamless handoff is a quick, smooth exchange between your restaurant staff and the delivery person. The delivery person should ideally be in and out, order in hand, in under 5 minutes.
According to the National Restaurant Association’s 2025 Off-Premises Restaurant Trends report, almost 75% of restaurant traffic in the US is now takeout or delivery, and 94% of customers say speed is critical to their satisfaction.
A seamless handoff helps meet that expectation. It may directly affect:
- Customer satisfaction: Delays at pickup may lead to late food and unhappy customers.
- Delivery person cancellations: Delays can make delivery people cancel, increasing customer wait times.
- Repeat sales: Slow handoffs can discourage future orders.
- Store atmosphere: Too many waiting delivery people can disrupt your dine-in space.
- Delivery person satisfaction: An efficient handoff process shows delivery people that you value their time.
- Customer cancellations: Delayed orders can make your customers cancel if they feel like they are waiting too long to receive their order
How to evaluate your handoff process in Uber Eats Manager
We’ve introduced a new metric in Uber Eats Manager: avoidable courier wait time. This shows you how much of a delivery person’s wait time exceeds the standard task time and could be affected by in-store operations.
In your Uber Eats Manager dashboard, you’ll discover:
Courier wait time: This is the time from when an order is marked “ready” to when the delivery person leaves with it.
Note: If an order is not marked as “ready” manually, then it will be marked as “ready” based on predicted prep time.
💡How is courier wait time measured?
Our system starts measuring courier wait time once your team has marked an order as “ready”—so if a delivery person arrives early, it won’t impact your avoidable courier wait time
If your order is marked “ready” but the delivery person isn’t there yet, our system will start measuring courier wait time once the delivery person arrives at your store
Avoidable courier wait time: This is the portion of that wait time that’s preventable. It excludes task time (time spent on necessary steps like parking and looking for a pickup location) and focuses on delays that can potentially be reduced through updated processes. This is an important metric to track—think of it as a spotlight on opportunities to streamline handoffs and make delivery faster for customers.
Note: Task time is a standard 5 minutes and is determined based on Uber Eats data and industry averages.
Tips for tracking
Average avoidable courier wait times tend to fluctuate throughout the day, week, and season—and it’s common for restaurants to have longer avoidable courier wait times during their busiest hours. The key is knowing when these spikes happen so you can plan accordingly.
Use the hourly view on your dashboard to find out when your average avoidable courier wait time tends to be highest. This can help you focus your efforts where they’ll have the biggest impact—whether that’s making staff adjustments, rethinking prep times, or improving your in-store delivery-related operations.
5 ways to improve your delivery handoff process
Use your avoidable courier wait time to measure whether you need to make operational changes. If it’s higher than the industry benchmark of 5 minutes, you can try to focus on these 5 key strategies:
Keep prep time accurate
Inaccurate prep times are one of the biggest causes of avoidable courier wait time. If your actual prep time is longer than what’s set in Uber Eats Manager, delivery people may arrive too early and wait longer.
To address this:
- Update your prep times in the Preparation Times tab under Settings.
- Customize based on time of day and day of week
- Use the hourly view of avoidable courier wait time to guide updates
Use tools to help ensure accurate pickup times
These tools in your Uber Eats Orders app can indicate when you need a bit more time:
- Busy mode: If you’re anticipating a rush or you’re suddenly swamped with a surge of orders, turn on busy mode to automatically add 10-20 minutes of prep time to all orders.
- Delay order: Need more time for a specific order? Request to delay an order before the delivery person is on their way.
Make sure orders are ready to go—and make pickup easier for delivery people
A few tweaks can save delivery people time and keep deliveries moving.
- Mark complete orders as ready for pickup. If an order is ready ahead of schedule, mark it as “ready” earlier so the delivery person arrives sooner.
- Confirm that your pickup address is accurate. In Uber Eats Manager, head to the Store Info tab under Settings to view and adjust the exact pickup location that delivery people see. You can also add helpful notes to guide delivery people, such as which entrance to use if there are multiple.
- Designate parking. If possible, you can reserve a parking space near your entrance just for delivery people. This helps make sure no time is lost to parking challenges.
Set up a clear pickup area
A designated, easy-to-find delivery person pickup spot may reduce confusion and speed up handoffs.
Tips:
Use clear signage. Showing delivery people exactly where to go allows them to grab their orders quickly and get back on the road.
Label orders clearly. Ensuring that each order has an attached receipt that displays the customer’s name allows delivery people to easily grab the correct orders without delays or mix-ups.
Organize orders alphabetically. Providing an organized pickup process with orders sorted by customers’ names helps delivery people find what they’re looking for faster, without wasting time sorting through bags.
Streamline in-store operations
You can speed up handoffs by eliminating common bottlenecks.
Prepackage the essentials. Set yourself up for a quick handoff by prepackaging items like condiments, napkins, and utensils.
Assign staff members to manage delivery orders. This helps ensure that orders are organized and waiting at your designated pickup area as soon as they’re ready to go.
Boost customer satisfaction with Uber
A fast, consistent handoff process helps to promote on-time deliveries, happier delivery people and customers, and more repeat business.
Visit your Uber Eats Manager dashboard to check your average and avoidable courier wait times—and start identifying where there may be room to improve.
Looking for more tips? Review our delivery best practices, discover 7 tips to nail delivery experience management, explore our insights hub, and browse our Merchants homepage for tools to grow your business.
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