If you will indulge me, I would
like to complain for a minute or two about Food Apps. Yes, those apps on the
phone that most of us use here in the United States to order food. Sometimes I
use them for delivery and sometimes I use them to save time when I go to pick
up our food for my family. Sometimes the app is one that orders directly from
the restaurant and sometimes it’s from a delivery service of one kind or
another. Most of the time these apps are a wonderful convenience.
Unfortunately, there have been numerous times when various restaurants got the
order wrong and using these apps was anything but convenient.
I once had a restaurant cancel my
order without explanation and without so much as a text. They did send an
email, but I didn’t see it until after we had waited way too long for our food.
Then there was the time when the app confirmed the order, and even charged my
credit card, but when I arrived to pick up the food, the restaurant had no record
of the order. The cashier explained that they had been having trouble with the
app all evening and said I had to call customer service at their national
headquarters. Customer service directed me back to the local franchise. Eventually
someone, or something, must have caught the mistake because they refunded my
money. Still, the ordeal left me wondering if I would ever go back to that
chain.
More often than not, my app mishaps
do not involve entire orders that evaporate into the cloud, but I have had several
deliveries where one or two items were missing. That happened the last two
times I ordered delivery, from two different restaurants. Once again these were
national chains, and their customer service departments were good about it. One
gave me a credit towards a future purchase (better than nothing). The other
(Chick-fil-A) gave me a refund for the missing item.
While I enjoy the convenience of
using these food apps, I think I’ll go back to driving to restaurants myself.
That will allow me to check the order before I walk away. Plus, I figure if I
have to make any more claims to customer service, someone is going to
investigate whether or not I’m pulling a scam. It definitely beats having to
figure out which family member goes hungry because the order was missing their
item. (Just kidding.) It’s time to avoid food app mishaps and that means doing
things the old-fashioned way. Now, where are my car keys?
