Disclaimer: The story may be familiar or even experienced by you already.
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!
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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.