PENNSYLVANIA, USA — UberEats is making changes to help customers and restaurants during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The company announced Monday several changes to its policies that are designed to help restaurants and customers continue to do business while still practicing social distancing. This includes waiving certain delivery fees and altering the restaurant billing cycle.
Janelle Sallenave, head of Uber Eats for the U.S. and Canada released this statement:
“We know the coming weeks will be challenging ones for many small business owners, and we want to help restaurants focus on food, not finances.” said Janelle Sallenave, head of Uber Eats for the U.S. and Canada. “That’s why we’re working to drive increased demand to more than 100,000 independent restaurants across the U.S. and Canada through free delivery and marketing efforts.”
Additional benefits include a new opt-in program for all restaurants in the US and Canada using the Uber Eats platform to receive daily payouts, rather than the company’s standard weekly payout.
“We've heard from restaurants that they're worried about what the health crisis will do to sales, and its impact on cash flow and their ability to pay suppliers or employees,” said Therese Lim, head of restaurant product at Uber Eats. “That's why, from today we'll provide restaurants with the option to receive daily payouts rather than waiting until the end of the week to see revenue from deliveries, which can be even more important as delivery becomes a bigger share of their sales during this time.”
Uber Eats has also begun a user campaign to drive awareness of “contactless” delivery, provided CDC guidance to restaurants to ensure all delivery orders are properly sealed in tamper-evident packaging, and is working to provide delivery people with sanitization materials in the most impacted markets.
“We are always working to help keep everyone who uses Uber safe,” said Andrew Macdonald, Vice President of Platform at Uber and global head of the company’s global coronavirus response team to support users including delivery people, restaurants, and drivers. “We remain in close contact with local public health authorities and will continue to follow their guidance to do what we can to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.”
