During May and June of 2020, there was a lot of uncertainty within industries and job markets. Most everywhere had been shut down due to the pandemic and many people were looking for new gigs, or forced to begin collecting unemployment. Molded by the hard-nosed, blue-collared folks of northeast Massachusetts, Michael Gross had no plans of going on unemployment. While the delivery platform he was currently helping out saw a decline in its business, a friend brought to him an up-and-coming platform that he mentioned was “poised to blow up”. From those days forward, a fairly spectacular bond would begin between DeliverThat and Mike.
A Boston native, Mike has been in and out of the city his entire life. Making a second-half career out of being an independent contractor, he’s delivered on any platform you could name. Uber, Ubereats, Grubhub, Doordash, anything he could get his hands on. After coming across DeliverThat, Mike quickly found the platform to be a bit different than what he had experienced previously. “When you call the other companies, you’re waiting for 10 or even 20 minutes to get someone”, Mike stated, “The breakfast check-in texts have saved me a couple of times to be honest also”, Mike continued, referring to the dispatchers night before and morning of texts sent to drivers who have any deliveries before 9 am. Last but not least, he also mentioned the aspect of DeliverThat that allows the drivers to schedule out their days and weeks well in advance. Starting as a prescheduled catering platform, DeliverThat prides itself in receiving and relaying delivery opportunities to drivers as soon as the deliveries are sent into the company itself, whether that be hours, days, weeks, or months ahead of time.
Delivery opportunities are not difficult to come by in the Boston Metro on the DeliverThat platform. With consistent partners comes consistent drivers and Mike has proven that to a tee. A major partner for DeliverThat since coming to Boston has been Tatte Bakery. When asked about his experiences with the restaurants in the Boston area, Mike quickly singles out this brand, with nothing but high praise for the business as a whole. “I love the people there. They are on-time 99% of the time, they communicate with everyone so well and they genuinely care about their customers. They want to get the food out on time, they want you to get there on time and they do their best to make that happen”. When asked about how many deliveries he has done in a single day, he begins to laugh to himself, “I think 7 or 8. Actually, I’m pretty sure I took 9 in a day once”, and that was just for one brand.
As a Red Sox lifer, it was pretty easy to prompt what would have been a memorable delivery experience for him. Immediately upon being asked if he ever got to deliver for the Sox, Bruins, or Celtics, Mike begins to reminisce on a delivery just a few months back. “I usually don’t work Saturdays, but one Saturday I opened the app and looked at one delivery and I saw where it was going and I had to tell my girlfriend we had to reschedule our plans for the day”, Mike explained. Upon opening his application that Saturday, Mike saw a delivery that was scheduled to be delivered at Fenway Stadium. Although it was going to the visiting team that day, the Seattle Mariners, Mike couldn’t pass an opportunity like this. “I got to deliver it to the visiting clubhouse, it was COVID and everything so I didn’t get to see everything I wanted, but the manager was super nice and he signed a couple of things for me and I have those with me still” Mike continued. Providing another memorable experience for a driver that we were able to communicate about was a wonderful moment for the two of us.
In closing, Mike had a few gems of advice for any new drivers to the DeliverThat platform. “Make sure you have enough of and the correct equipment, gas up the car, charge the phone, you can never have too many bags. Be patient with restaurants and customers because they are our customers too”, he persisted. We asked Mike what he would say to someone he was referring to Deliverthat or anyone looking for a new gig, “The company has your back 24/7. We are #1 in customer service. As far as I’ve seen in Boston, we are never short of deliveries.” We finished our conversation with one last word from Mike that felt very applicable to the ongoing battle between third-party delivery and the catering/delivery world, “I would recommend this to anyone. It’s better than anything I’ve ever done. I’d love to bring anyone over to the light.” The light side indeed.
DeliverThat is beyond appreciative of the work Mike has put in for himself and our platform. The success he and other like-minded drivers continue to have has only boasted our vision of where we want to see the food delivery industry and its relationship with gig drivers go.
