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Monday, February 6, 2017

Overwhelmed, UberEATS fails to deliver

Celine wanted to make sure that her guests could be fed before they started their regular Friday meeting. So she pre-ordered 30 packets of various rice sets a day earlier from Mini Wok, using her UberEATS app.

She was also afraid that her order might be too big to fulfil, especially during the Lunar New Year season. But UberEATS went ahead and accepted her order.

Confident there would not be any hitch as she had used  the same company before, she waited patiently for the delivery, scheduled between 6.45 and 7.15 pm.

When 7.15 pm came and went, she thought the delay could have been caused by a traffic jam as a result of rain.  At 7.25 pm when there was still no sign of the food courier, she called UberEATS to
check.

"The guy who answered my call said it would arrive in 10 minutes.  But in the app the estimated time of arrival displayed increased to 7.50 pm as I continued to wait," Celine recounted.

At 7.41 pm she called the Call Centre again to ask what had happened.

"This time, a different guy told me that their couriers could cancel any delivery without giving any reason," she said.

"So I had 25 hungry guests at 8.10 pm with no food. I wonder what happened to the 30 packets of food that were already prepared, supposedly."

What upset Celine was that UberEATS failed to inform her that it might not be able to fulfil such a large order. There was also no warning about sudden cancellation.

She said: "If they did so, then there is nothing to complain about as I took the risk knowingly."

Later that evening, UberEATS messaged her to apologise, adding that "the massive influx of orders, & the lack of couriers available"  were the cause of the non-delivery.

It was not unexpected that UberEATS would be overwhelmed during this festive season,  but  inadequate management and poor communications were something else -- and inexcusable. 

For that, UberEATS deserves a big BOO-QUET.








 

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