Disclaimer: The story may be familiar or even experienced by you already.
6:30 pm, Sunday, 15 Feb 2015 Gurgaon: We were having thoughts about what to have for dinner – lazy Sunday evenings as usual. I recall Food Panda’s TVC about its BOGO offer (I thought I am above TV influence but I was wrong). We decide to order. My son gets excited.
7:19 pm: Order successfully placed from Biryani Paradise through Food Panda. Estimated time to deliver communicated to us is 50 min – we assume an hour (habit of rounding off everything I guess). My son is getting really excited.
8:15 pm: Our first follow up. Call up Biryani Paradise Sec 31 Gurgaon. Received a prompt reply which sounded quite rehearsed “We haven’t received your order.” The guy hung up.
8:20 pm: My wife calls again and this time the person on the other side of the line tells her that the order has been placed with the Sec 23 Branch. Frustrated, she calls the Sec 23 branch but nobody picks up. After several tries somebody answers and tells her that the order has been dispatched 10 min ago. Ok, not that bad may be – she thought.
8:35 pm: No sign of any delivery. She is getting anxious as my son has already finished half an apple by this time. She calls up the restaurant again – this time she is told that the guy is on his way but she insists on his contact number. She calls that number only to find out that somebody else is handling the order. Trying to control herself, she asks for that person’s contact number. But the number is not in order.
8:45 pm: My son is eating some aloo bhujiya and his mother can’t stand it. She calls Biryani Paradise again (we live in so much of Hope i guess) and she is again given conflicting replies and a few more numbers. She is really furious. The guy on the other end (I wonder why there are no women in this profession) senses her mood and hangs up.
9:00 pm: We feel really cheated and taken for a ride. Now that we have invested ourselves into it, the idea to cut our losses doesn’t cross us, not yet. We wait – our fists clinched.
9:15 pm: My wife has already started to prepare Khichdi (sounds like a delicacy at this point). She gives them a final call to cancel the order. They don’t seem to care. She drops a message to Food Panda telling them how their system sucks (what else to do to take out her anger – after all some bugger made a mother delay her son’s meal even when she is perfectly capable of feeding her child).
9:40 pm: I feel I should do something about this – thought this forum might have somebody who could make sense from our experience. At least WHAT NOT TO DO in serving their customers.
9:57 pm: Feeling a bit better after sharing. Time to have my Khichdi – at least it is not devoid of love – the only ingredient that makes food – the food you really want to have.
Thanks
Amit, @unilogue
PS: Foodpanda never bothered to respond to our complaint. Biryani Paradise lied to them that they have delivered the order, Foodpanda has no way (system/process) to verify what happened, they chose to believe liars from Biryani Paradise and we were cheated of 450 bucks. Bitter ending. Sigh!
******************
UPDATE:
19th Feb 2015 evening, Gurgaon: Foodpanda called and assured refunds and sent us some chocolate pastries to cheer up the mood. So I guess, it’s done. Some lessons learned – hoping to write a happy story inspired by some great service some day. Till then, thanks for listening and strengthening my belief in collective action.
asha chaudhry
whoa! i hear you (and especially your wife), amit!
i’ve done the khichadi routine many a time when the cook ditches without informing 🙁
and yes, nothing pains a mother more than seeing her child hungry
have they got back to you at all?
i hope someone’s able to connect someone from food panda – they should hear this story of customer service gone terribly wrong….
Gaurav Sharma
Hi Amit,
Let me get someone to resolve this, this shouldn’t happen. foodpanda did face a technical glitch in the evening on Sunday due to a traffic surge, it being the last day of #BOGOmonth, but if you got the confirmation message there must be an issue with the vendor. This should be resolved on priority!
asha chaudhry
oh wow. just checked out your profile gaurav – you work at foodpanda!!!
isn’t this awesome?! i just love that we have a rodinhooder everywhere!!!
dude you guys gotta make it up to amit’s wife and child – seriously!! kids get so disappointed when there’s a last minute change of food scene. and women really need time off from the kitchen… big karma points your way if you make it up them!!
Gaurav Sharma
Yes Asha, on it.
The refund has already been processed but it may take a couple of days to reflect in account from bank’s side. There’s nothing worse than keeping someone hungry, we’re in process of organizing the most unorganized sector – food delivery.
Sunday + Indo-Pak really affected a lot of deliveries around (not only online, phone ordering as well)
*Consider this a personal reply, and not professional*
Amit Kumar Sharma
Thanks Gaurav and Asha.
Foodpanda called and assured refunds and sent us some chocolate pastries to cheer up the mood. So I guess, it’s done. Some lessons learned – hoping to write a happy story inspired by some great service some day. Till then, thanks for listening and strengthening my belief in collective action.
Darshan Bhambiru
That was some Pretty fast BUG CLIPping in Real Time Gaurav!!! 😉
Glad the issue was taken care of Amit, a Satisfied and Happy Customer is always a Returning WELCOME!
Good job!! and Well handled too!!
Our job is to find the disconnected and connect them, to find people eager to pursue a goal and give them the structure to go achieve that goal. But just about always, we start with an already existing worldview, a point of view, a hunger that’s waiting to be satisfied. Seth Godin~
#JustBeingMysElf
Think – Do – Be
#WikiRH
Amit Kumar Sharma
Thanks Darshan. Like the lines from Seth Godin “…a hunger waiting to be satisfied” 🙂
Daman Anand
“we’re in process of organizing the most unorganized sector – food delivery”.This justification is not acceptable.If you are providing a service (and spending huge money in advertisement), you must focus on service aspect. I have been a florist for more than 20 years and there are days (like valentines day) when we are filled with orders up to the neck. But we deliver all orders. And yes, when you know you can not handle any more, you need to stop there and then (in real time). We disable the ordering buttons on our website when we know we can not handle any more.
Rahul Singh
Interestingly, They never bothered to send a reply to me.
I was told I will get 20% discount, instead I ended up paying more. 🙁
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154874323990621&set=o.343730105683882&type=1&theater
Regards,
Rahul.
Rachel Gojer
I had pretty much the same experience not once but twice( stupid me for giving them second chance!) with Delyver which is a similar service in Bangalore.