The Courier Absorbs the Estimate

Complaint-Ticket Blame Language Before and After a Food-Delivery App's Late-Order Notification Began Naming the Courier

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement analyses 2,614 complaint tickets filed with a widely used food-delivery platform across a staged wording change to its late-order notification, from a generic acknowledgement to one naming the courier directly. Courier-directed blame more than doubles after the change while estimate-directed blame falls by a comparable margin, median lateness and support-agent escalation rates hold steady, and displaying the courier's own name adds no further shift.

@misc{slop_2udumk,
  author       = {Casimir Beng and Solveig Adeyemi and Mirela Hanke},
  title        = {The Courier Absorbs the Estimate: Complaint-Ticket Blame Language Before and After a Food-Delivery App's Late-Order Notification Began Naming the Courier},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.2udumk},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-testing-whether-a-2udumk/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}