You are being rated for a delivery you did not make
This is the defining unfairness of food delivery platforms. The customer orders, a courier you have never met collects it, and forty minutes later a cold meal arrives at the wrong door. The one-star rating lands on your restaurant.
Late delivery, a driver who could not find the address, a bag left in the rain, an order handed to the wrong flat: none of that is the kitchen’s doing, and all of it shows up on your score. The same applies to app problems, promotions that did not apply, and refunds handled by support.
Separating what happened in your kitchen from what happened afterwards is the whole job on this platform, and it is the argument most restaurants never make because they are busy running a service.
Missing items are the argument worth having
Missing and wrong items are the most common complaint and the most contested, because they could be either party. Your ticket, your packing process and your handover records decide it. Restaurants that photograph sealed bags or use a checklist at handover win these disputes; restaurants that do not, generally cannot.
If missing items are a recurring theme, the fix is upstream of the reviews. Sealed packaging and a two-person check at handover removes both the complaints and the refunds that come with them.
What can be challenged
Grounds that work
- Complaints about delivery time or courier conduct
- Orders delivered to the wrong address
- Problems with the app, payment or a promotion
- Refunds and support handled by the platform
- Reviews for a different restaurant or location
- Abusive or discriminatory content
- Ratings tied to an order that was canceled by the platform
Grounds that do not
- A customer who did not like the food
- Complaints about portion size or price
- Accurate reports of a missing item you did miss
- Criticism of packaging that did not hold up
Delivery complaints are the largest removable category on this platform by a wide margin, and they are worth challenging systematically rather than occasionally.
Your rating controls your visibility
On a marketplace, the score is not just persuasion, it decides placement. A slipping rating means fewer people see you in the list at all, which compounds: fewer orders, fewer new reviews, and a score dominated by the bad ones already there.
That is why acting quickly matters more here than on a directory. A restaurant that challenges delivery-related ratings weekly holds a materially better position than one that reviews the problem quarterly.
What it costs
Priced per case, and for delivery platforms this is usually ongoing rather than one-off, because the ratings keep arriving. We will tell you whether a periodic review of new ratings makes more sense than a single clean-up.
Nothing up front, nothing until removals are complete.
How we handle it
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We sort kitchen from courier
Every rating gets classified by what actually went wrong. Most restaurants are surprised how much of their score is delivery.
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We match against your tickets
Prep times, handover times and order contents, so the challenge rests on records rather than recollection.
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We file by category
Delivery, platform and misattribution each have their own route, and filing them correctly is what gets them removed.
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We fix the handover
Sealed bags, checklists and photographs, which cut missing-item disputes sharply.
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We set up a regular sweep
Ratings arrive continuously, so this works far better as a routine than as an occasional project.
Choosing help
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They classify every rating
Bulk-disputing everything gets declined. Sorting by cause is what makes the delivery argument work.
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They want your ticket data
Prep and handover times are what settle missing-item and delay disputes.
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They think about placement
The score drives how many people see you, which is the real cost.
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They fix the handover process
Otherwise the same disputes recur every week and you pay for them every week.
The realistic outcome
Delivery, platform and misattributed ratings come off, which for most kitchens is a substantial share of the bad ones. Food criticism stays, because it should. Handover changes cut the missing-item complaints, and the score recovers enough to restore your placement, which is where the orders come from.