While most people were figuring out how they were going to ring in the new year yesterday, I was knee-deep in a tedious project for an old client of mine that I'd decided I was going to finish before 2025, come hell or high water. I'd been working since the crack of dawn. I was mentally and physically exhausted from sitting at my computer. And I was hungry. Very, very hungry — the only thing I'd had to eat all day was a piece of cheese.
So, I did something I've been trying not to do much of lately: I placed an order with UberEats. In an effort to enjoy a slower pace of life and be a little healthier, I've been trying to cook more and eat out less in recent months, but after a series of unfortunate events over the last couple of weeks, I was in desperate need of groceries and didn't want to take any time away from this self-imposed project deadline. I also wanted to treat my dad — we've both had a bit of a rough time personally lately, so I decided to splurge a little and order from one of our favorite restaurants to ring in 2025.
I placed the order sometime between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m. It was supposed to arrive around 7:00, but that ETA kept creeping up. Fine, it's a holiday, and I'm sure everyone in the world is ordering takeout. It finally arrived around 8:00 p.m., and when I went to my garage to retrieve the food, I knew immediately that something was wrong. The bag barely had any food in it. Then I noticed some handwriting indicating that there should be two bags for the order. So, I called the driver thinking maybe she just forgot one of them. That was not the most pleasant of phone calls. I could tell by her immediate defensiveness that she knew it wasn't right either. It was almost like she had been expecting me to make this call.
Next, I reached out to UberEats's customer service. I've been a customer of theirs for years, and I don't abuse the system. I only file a report when food I paid for is missing. They used to be pretty good about making up the difference via a refund or credit, though over the last few months, I've noticed a decline in service. And last night, when I told them most of my entire $55 order never arrived, they essentially sent me an automatic reply that said there would be no refunds and they'd try to do better next time. Well, let's just say I'm not sure there's going to be a next time.
Not happy with their canned response, I reached out via X and via the chat option on their website (God forbid they actually put me in touch with a live person), and long story a little shorter, it's been 24 hours and I've yet to actually receive any sort of resolution. I actually just reached out on X again this afternoon and was told "rest assured, it's in their queue." They can also "rest assured" that as soon as it is resolved, I'm canceling my account for good because as of right now, I'm still out $55 (plus my $9 tip), I ended up working until 3:30 a.m. because I had to take time to deal with all of it, and I spent New Year's Eve eating some Aldi hot dogs with a questionable expiration date.
Anyway, all of this has got me thinking about customer service. This isn't the first incident I've had like this lately. I spent forever on the phone with Amazon last week because they tried to charge me for a heating pad I ordered — in September — that was damaged because the driver left it sitting outside in a literal hurricane. After sending them pictures of the waterlogged product and talking to multiple people, someone finally assured me I would not be charged and didn't need to return it. But here they were in December just randomly charging me for it. And while I finally did get that resolved after a lot of runaround, the final customer service rep I spoke to basically admitted that she was afraid they are too big and too automated to actually be able to fix the problem.
And that leaves me wondering if size is the issue. Are these companies becoming so big that we're trading the convenience they offer for customer service? Is placing an order with a national brand just a game of consumer roulette these days? Buy something and you might get your product or you might not, but we're darn sure not going to offer you a refund if you don't.
An article I found from Access Development, a Utah company that specializes in providing customer loyalty programs for businesses, states that "More and more large consumer businesses are purposefully devising a difficult and tiresome customer service experience to frustrate customers and generate revenue." They're hopeful that customers will basically get frustrated and give up.
Or maybe it's just a sign of the times, a generational issue. I worked in retail during high school and college, and customer service was ingrained in me from day one. I've smiled politely through some of the rudest encounters you can imagine — like the lady who pelted individual Christmas candies at me because they were no longer on sale when I was a cashier at Borders — but I knew the customer was always right. I knew that I could call my manager, and he'd come over and ring the candy up at the sale price to make her happy.
Or maybe I'm just getting older, and my tolerance is waning. A few weeks ago, I was in a store and the cashier, who may have been 18 tops, rang me up without saying a single word during the entire transaction. As I walked out the door, I almost mouthed off, "No, thank you for being so pleasant today and welcoming me into your store where I spent money and helped pay your salary." But I stopped myself before I could because I realized I sounded a little bit like my mother and a little bit like Kathy Bates in the Winn Dixie parking lot in "Fried Green Tomatoes."
Maybe it's all fallout from the pandemic. Or technology overload. Maybe everything is far too digital these days. A 2022 article from Forbes blames the decrease in real-world human interaction and staffing shortages for the decline in customer service in recent years. It says that the employees who do work are tired due to their companies being understaffed.
A quick search on X shows me that I'm alone in my UberEats situation, but it sounds like the problem is more widespread. According to the National Customer Rage Survey, Americans are more fed up with customer service from all companies than ever before: Customer service complaints in the United States have more than doubled since the 1970s, and "in all, the survey estimates that businesses are risking $887 billion in future revenue due to mediocre complaint handling (up from $494 billion in 2020)."
I guess in the end, the problem is a combination of all these factors. They create a perfect storm for bad customer service. And I know it may not matter in the long run, but I'm so fed up that I've decided I'm going to make it my New Year's resolution to be more intentional about the way I shop. Rather than clicking on Amazon every time I realize I need something and looking for instant gratification, I'm going to try to support a local business instead. And because I know I won't totally stop eating takeout, when I do want it, I'm going to go pick it up myself rather than having it delivered and eliminate the expensive middle man who couldn't care less about me.
As a matter of fact, I did that tonight. My aunt gave me a gift card to Texas Roadhouse for Christmas, and after last night's debacle, I decided I'd try one more time for a nice dinner that I didn't have to cook before I go buy groceries and get back to reality tomorrow. When I arrived at the restaurant, the guy at the takeout counter was incredibly polite and pleasant, and he even had me go through the bag with him to make sure my order was correct before I left the building. It may have taken a little more time and effort on my part, but it was a far better experience and one that will probably earn them more business in the future. I'll probably eat there again. I've told several friends about it. And here I am writing about it in a public forum. And while they're not as big as Amazon and Uber, it was proof that a large company can get things right if they try.
