Don’t just eat, just wait

Here is a story of how I failed to get any food by online ordering.

Just occasionally, I am inspired out of my indolence to join the internet world. This evening, for example, for some reason I thought it might be fun to have food delivered. There is a fish and chip shop down the road, and since I wasn’t supposed to be walking very far, this seemed a good opportunity to try online food delivery. A quick glance at the Just Eat site showed they offered food from the local chip shop.

Ordering was no problem; the food was due for delivery in around 45 minutes, at 19:25. Fifty minutes after the delivery time, there was still no food. I looked at the email from Just Eat confirming that the restaurant had received my order, and this is where things got more complicated.

The above message looks pretty straightforward. On my smartphone, however, the word “here” was not underlined and so did not appear to be a hyperlink. So I tried phoning the restaurant, and I was surprised that the number shown in the above message was actually Just Eat, not the restaurant. After being told twice by a recorded message that it might be faster to phone the restaurant (which is what I had done), I was told the Just Eat customer delivery phone number was not operational.

Clearly, the restaurant must have a phone number, so I found it by searching on Google and then phoned them. “I bet you are from Just Eat. We can’t get a driver!”, they said. “Best bet for you would be to cancel the order. It’ll be a long time before we can get a driver. There are two orders ahead of you.”

Given this helpful advice, I had to try again to contact Just Eat. This time, I tried phoning and when asked to select “customer” or “restaurant” I stated I was a restaurant rather than a customer waiting for an order. I’m good at lying. This time I was connected to Just Eat. The customer service representative was very helpful. She explained that some restaurants employed their own drivers; clearly, the restaurant I had picked was an example. These restaurants expected any delivery problems to be resolved by Just Eat, so they didn’t give their phone number on the Just Eat site. I cancelled the order, Just Eat refunded my money and gave me a £5 voucher off my next order.

I was left with lots of questions. My experience overall was as low as it is possible to get. At the same time as trying Just Eat, I could see their adverts appearing on the football broadcast I was watching. Clearly Just Eat are spending vast sums promoting their service – but some restaurants fail completely to communicate to Just Eat when something is not working, like no deliveries. Why was I not contacted about any delay? Why did the restaurant not tell Just Eat to stop taking orders? Why did the Just Eat site not give me the phone number of the restaurant? Why did Just Eat’s recorded message keep telling me to contact the restaurant directly when that it what I was trying to do? Why do Just Eat sign deals with restaurants that fail to deliver?

For my first experience of one of the big online food delivery services, both the delivery and the information provision failed totally. Like so many online services, Just Eat fixes the simple things – taking the order – while leaving the more complex operational aspects in other hands, such as actually delivering the food. They rub their hands with glee at the prospect of creating a monopoly, in this case food ordering, at which point they can charge what they like and ignore customer wishes. Come to think about it, attending to the needs of the customer seem pretty low down on their priorities even now. Rather than just eating, they were happy for me to just wait. I don’t think I’ll use the £5 voucher.