Yesterday, my family and I went to visit my aunt at the hospital as she had given birth to a beautiful, teeny, tiny baby girl who smiled whenever I touched her cheek. As the kids were coming back to my other aunt’s house to stay over, I thought I’d order dessert for the family because what better way to celebrate, right? So, I placed an order on Deliveroo for some Creams dessert which cost £38. I ordered some apple pie with custard for myself as I hadn’t indulged in proper dessert in a long while. However, once the order was delivered, I discovered that my custard was missing!
Now, you must be thinking what is the big deal? It’s just custard. But the only way I was going to eat apple pie was with some freaking delicious custard. The only naked apple pie I will eat is McDonalds which is perfectly understandable because it’s reliably good. And principles are principles. When you make an order, both the restaurant and customer agree on the items to be delivered. It’s a basic contract.
Naturally, I called Creams and informed them that my custard was missing and that I would like it delivered. Their response went along the lines of: “This happens sometimes. Sometimes the driver misplaces the order. We cannot deliver you the custard because it doesn’t meet the £10 delivery fee.” They would barely let me talk and made it clear the conversation was over (I mean the call lasted a minute).
What struck me as ridiculous was that this could not have been the case. The order was accepted at 6:45pm and arrived at 7.05pm. I don’t believe there were any other orders there to be misplaced. My relatives saw that the Deliveroo driver had only one bag (blue and red) and the only orders inside were our ones. Therefore, there were no orders to misplace. The restaurant failed to deliver the custard (prepare and/or place it in the bag) and blamed it on the poor Deliveroo driver. Therefore, Creams Restaurant LIED.
Then, I called Deliveroo customer service; a phone call that lasted 39 MINUTES and I had to be put on hold for what seems like half that time. Their response?
D: We’re so sorry. We can only offer you a refund of £1.
Me: No, you are not. I have explained to you what happened, the restaurant (Creams) is at fault. They didn’t deliver the custard, they blamed it on the driver when it was clearly their fault. Therefore, it is their responsibility and they should deliver the custard and waive any potential delivery fee. If you really are sorry, you would acknowledge their failure to meet the terms of the contract. You would deliver the order, and/or you would refund the item.
(After a long while of Deliveroo still insisting they can only refund £1 as I remained persistent. By the way, I am a long-time customer of Deliveroo and have been using their service since early days and I pressed that point. They didn’t care).
Me: But for the custard I would not have placed the order for the apple pie. When I made that order, there was an explicit intention specified by the menu itself that the apple pie would be served with custard and as Creams accepted the order, they therefore agreed to the terms of the contract. Therefore, this means I paid £4.95 on an item and you are refunding only £1.
(The supervisor, at this point, FINALLY checks the menu. He discovers that it explicitly states that the apple pie is served with hot custard.)
And now, finally, the supervisor comes to the realisation, that YES, that a full refund of £4.95 should be issued. However, as you can see I am not satisfied. The custard should have been delivered. That was the dessert I ordered for myself. I paid £38, bought dessert for EIGHT people including me and they couldn’t deliver a simple custard. Are you serious? It is your (Creams) fault that you didn’t deliver the custard, the least you could do was deliver it when you were informed that it was missing. When I order from JustEat and they forget an item, do you know what they do? They apologise and then DELIVER the item. I mean, your service is called ‘Deliveroo,’ the very least you can do is deliver! Deliveroo: we do don’t do deliveries.
Here’s a link to another drama that happened recently with Deliveroo: Deliveroo asks for disgruntled customer’s forgiveness instead of refunding ‘stone cold’ pizza
Sofearless 
Dang, you were fiesty on the phone!
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I had to stand up for myself! Letting people getting away with not doing their job just gives them the green light to do it again.
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Haha, true
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Just wow.
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Damn right.
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I’ve been in customer service for 13 years. I can’t even begin to go into how much is wrong here.
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There you go! You know a lot more about it and this further proves the point.
I think at one point there was someone laughing which was insane. It’s basic contract law as well and they took 39 minutes to look at the menu.
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Customer service people get emotionally calloused like doctors and nurses. Combine that with corporate policies and you have a recipe for disaster.
I’ve actually considered writing a self help book for people who need the most from customer service.
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I think it’s the volume of calls they receive that by the end of the day, they’re just too tired to deal with people appropriately. Nonetheless, a customer still has the right to complain and it is still their job to assist! They should have called the restaurant, never mind just giving me a refund. In less than 20 mins, the food (a large order) had been prepared and delivered (excepting the custard). No way, could the driver have had other deliveries in the area in such a short space of time. Any corporate policies, regardless, will have legal departments that should be able to understand basic legal issues and it was clear that they didn’t.
I think it would be a good idea, there are so many woeful instances that show that they need help.
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I think you’re on the right track. The biggest problem with large corporations is that policies are set by people who are so far removed from the day to day interaction that they only have numbers to work with. That data is only as good as the input and people in the middle tend not to report negative attributes. This pattern seems to hold true for any large organizations.
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That makes sense. So they really don’t report the negative attributes? It seems to me that in corporations that operate on the reliability of the service, negative feedback would be constructive to improving sales and customer retention. You deliver a service to customers, your customers should be at the heart of it. They kept saying sorry repeatedly, what am I supposed to do with your apologies? An apology isn’t going to fix the problem. Insane.
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I’ll try to do a post on this subject within the next few days so I can go into detail.
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That would be great! A lot of food delivery companies have such poor customer service, especially UberEats, they’re the worst.
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We don’t have these services in my “town”. The closest is about 80 kilometers away.
We have a general store with a deli and you phone it in then pick it up yourself. I would be surprised if there’s 1000 people here.
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That seems very stress-free! Are you living in the countryside?
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Yes. But I still have a day job so I travel the 80 kilometers to work and then again after my shift.
Otherwise it would be very stress free. I own my own land. I can’t see my next door neighbor because of the hills. But I’m close enough to have everything I need.
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80km….. DAMN. You, my friend, are living the introverts dream.
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When I was a kid I an area to roam that was larger than Central Park in NYC. I was almost a real life Tarzan.
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I know how you feel (except, I perhaps felt more like a monkey)! As a child, I lived and was raised in Bangladesh for quite a well and it is a jungle of some sorts, I guess. There is so many more adventures to be had if you are a child living in a much less urban area! A Tarzan child is the way to go.
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I’d find a young person who is capable doing the job and stop giving large corporations my money. Someone who’s able to form a personal connection with you will always give better service.
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The case of the missing custard! I could turn this into one of my Roger Tuckerman emails.
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Haha, please do! I’m loving your email posts.
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Actually, sorry, but no! It is my post and my story after all.
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