YES I know you live in an apartment complex

[Mental_Mouse]

My local cab company (which bought up all the indies) has an automated response which remembers prior orders: "if you''d like to book a cab from 1234 Friedegg Drive, press 1". Last time, I pressed 1 early, thus missing the fact that they apparently hadn't recorded my apartment number... the driver went to the development entrance, waited 5 minutes without attempting to call me, then drove off, triggering the automated message "the driver was unable to contact you".... I figured this out when I called back, furious, and this time saw the message "the driver is outside", when they weren't. Fortunately, I was able to call the driver that time....

[Deserted]

Our system does that. "If you would like to be picked up at 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... North... Sixty... Seventh... Avenue, press 1." And the customer does so, even though they're calling from a cell phone and are actually all the way across town, 50+ miles away. Yes, I've had that happen before. "No, 12345 N 67th Ave is where I need to get to, I'm at 8675309 South Jenny Street. How long will it take you to get here?" Oh, an hour or so, and the meter will be running the entire time. Would you rather call for a different cab?

(No, I wouldn't do that; the people would never pay for it, and would be long gone by the time I arrived.)

Deserted----

I have the same problem. but with food delivery it is a little more complex. My delivery area includes MANY multi-unit houses (actually older larger houses that have been chunked/split up into at least 2 or 3 units sometimes up to 6 or 7 units with a really large older house.). in a LOT of cases people who order (both over the phone AND the internet) will for some reason leave off the fact they live in one of these chunked up buildings (they just seem to answer the question "Are you in an apartment or private home?" with the answer "Private Home EVEN IF they are in a multi-unit chunked up house). ALL the vet drivers know these addresses well and KNOW we are going to have to call to find out if this is an upper/lower left/right front/back entrance and then upper/lower left/right front/back apartment.

I feel your pain, believe me. I especially like the ones where each apartment/condo/whatever has its own address, instead of something rational like "Apartment 1".

[Kristev]

For some time I actually had an easy solution for pizza delivery people. I'd had an electric wreath with purple lights in my window. I liked it, so I didn't take it down.

It worked well, as not only could I tell them the street to turn down on to get to our flats, but which flat they should look for.

[WishfulSpirit]

Where I live each building has it's own street address. The buildings do have numbers but there isn't really clear signage as to the numbers of the buildings. Giving the street address will direct a delivery person to the right place. At least UPS and Dominos seem to think so!

[EricKei]

Around here, our place is "the red brick house with the flags." A prior owner had three flag receptacles (to hold the staves at a 45-ish degree angle) on the front, so we usually have a US flag, a period state flag dating back to the house's construction year, and a <sports team> flag flying at any given time.