Placed an order for half and half (original and secret sauce, flavor was fine) takeout Sunday evening. The ambiance is just a regular franchise store with outdated looking booths and tables. We came in store to place the order, it took 30 minutes for the food to be ready. We got home and found out that the order was incorrect. I called the store right away and a female employee offered two options: to have our order remade or a refund. Didn't want to go back to the store, nor did we want more chicken; we opted for a refund. She asked for the order number and the name of the order. She told me she processed a refund and that we should expect a refund in 1-3 days as it takes time for the system to process.
As we didn't finish the chicken the same day, I warmed some up the next day. I could taste the unpleasant taste of oil that ruined the chicken flavor. I simply didn't want to eat it anymore. However, if you don't have sharp tastebuds you may not taste it. It tasted like seed oils that had been sitting, reused for too long, although common for the industry.
I ended up speaking to different employees on the phone to check-in about the status of refund also on Friday and Saturday which I kept being told they would talk to their manager. I missed one return call of Friday which they could have messaged me or left a message. So I called back on Saturday and was told by an employee the manager said that I needed to call DoorDash.
I got around to calling DoorDash support on Monday morning. I was told that once three days has passed from the order date, that it's the responsibility of the store, not the customer to call DoorDash merchant services to process the refund. After that, DoorDash will void the order, and the merchant needs to follow up in their DoorDash platform to complete and approve the refund. I called the store on Monday after opening time at different intervals and the phone wasn't being picked up. Instead I went in person and told the employee the issue. She called her manager to relay the message that DoorDash support stated that he needs to call them. Instead the manager kept telling the employee I need to call DoorDash. The employee's manager even claimed he couldn't do anything about the refund because it's passed three days. Because it was getting no where, I called DoorDash support again and had them explain to the employee what I already told her. She then called her manager again, and after 45 minutes of the manager arguing and refusing to call DoorDash he finally agreed to call them. He asked for some personal info to search the order, but told me he didn't have a pen and paper and asked me to text him via his employee's phone. Like just open a note on your phone? He even tried to blame me and say that I should have called DoorDash right away after the initial Sunday phone call where I complained about the wrong order. No, your employee on the phone told me she had taken care of it. Manager told me it would take him 1-2 days to take care of the matter and another 1-3 days for DoorDash system to process the refund.
All this to say, the lack of follow up and follow through from the employees and store manager, I shouldn't have to keep asking them what the status is and what's happening. His actions gave the impression that he viewed this task as an inconvenience and kept pushing back in various ways, till he realized I wasn't going to let it go. If the manager had dealt with the problem right away once notified by staff and took the lead to contact DoorDash things would have been simple. Only took eleven days after my order to finally get the refund. The main part of the food industry entails customer service. read more