My boyfriend and I ordered delivery online. Multiple times we put on the online form to "call upon arrival." He paid with his credit card online upon placing the order.
He lives in an apartment that is essentially the basement of another home; the entrance is around the back. So we waited about an hour for the food, and then went outside to check. The driver had delivered the food to the woman upstairs, a 96 year old woman with dementia. Obviously we weren't going to go take the food from an old woman. That's just mean. So I called the restaurant to explain the situation. He told me to "hold on" and then put the phone down for five minutes (not on hold, just put it down). I ended up hanging up and calling back. When I explained again what had happened the man told me he would make new food and send it to us. I thanked him and asked him to make sure that when the driver got there that he would call my boyfriend's cell phone. This would enable us to come outside and get the food.
So another hour goes by and still no food, or phone call. My boyfriend then called the restaurant. The man told my boyfriend that the driver had gone to the house and had been told that no food had been ordered. Keep in mind that he had already delivered food to this woman, who told him the first time (presumably) that she had not ordered food. So he then went back to the same woman and tried to deliver her more food? While the woman was lucky enough to get some free food out of the deal, it still must have been very disorienting for her (and probably the driver, but I'll get to that).
Eventually, my boyfriend manages to make it clear to the man on the phone that the order we paid for never got to us. Considering we had given specific instructions multiple times to ensure that it would, we were obviously not at fault. They did offer us a refund, but all we really wanted was our food so they decided to make us new food (again) and send it to us (again). Once again my boyfriend told them to make sure that he was called when the driver got to the house.
We waited outside for half an hour, and saw the car pull into the driveway. I went up to meet him and told him what had happened. The man obviously did not speak a great deal of English, but was able to understand the situation when I told him what had happened.
What I really can't understand is why couldn't the man who was taking our phone calls explain to the delivery driver to simply call us when he arrived; it wouldn't need to be a long conversation. The restaurant also could have called when he left so we would have an idea and know when to go out and wait, if he didn't have a phone. That would be perfectly reasonable: if he didn't have a cell phone, they could have just told us and given us a time estimate. At least someone should have told him that the upstairs of the house was not the right address and if he wanted to he could have gone around back to knock. We had also explained that on the phone with the man at the restaurant.
I think the situation was a result of very poor communication and management. While the delivery driver spoke fairly broken English, he seemed to understand when I told him there was an apartment downstairs. I just don't want this to sound like a tirade about language because that is far from the truth. I think the restaurant is very poorly run, and whoever was answering the phone did not care at all about his job (or the fact that people pay good money for a service, and it should be done correctly). I did not get the feeling he had relayed any message whatsoever to the delivery driver. The poor man was just staring at receipts for a while in his car when he got there for the third time. I eventually went up and knocked on the window and explained what had happened.
Anyway, after a solid three hours, we were so hungry the food was good. In all reality, it actually was very good, so there's the silver lining. I definitely don't think its worth the three hour wait however. Maybe just don't get delivery. Or maybe they should find a different person to answer the phone. read more