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If Postmates wants to keep doing well, they need to improve their customer service. A restaurant significantly overcharged me (or the driver bought dinner for

by panic 10y ago

If Postmates wants to keep doing well, they need to improve their customer service. A restaurant significantly overcharged me (or the driver bought dinner for himself?) and they wouldn't refund any of it. There are tons of similar comments on the app.

calebio 10y ago
I agree. Their customer support has declined significantly over the years due to what I assume to be growth and scaling pains. Then again, their early support methods included a live phone operator. However, it's still no excuse for what they have today. Their support, in my experience, is often lackluster at best and requires the consumer to basically beg for a resolution. I love Postmates and will continue to use them, but competitors like Doordash who have awesome customer service[0] continue to woo me over to their side. [0] - Had a bad delivery yesterday.. their support flow to select exactly what was wrong and what I wanted done about it (bring me new item, refund me, other).
- nefitty 10y ago
  I had my first bad experience yesterday. There was a big traffic accident and my order ended up taking over an hour. A cs rep called me to apologize and explain the situation and gave me the whole order for free. I didn't expect that at all. Plus, the sandwich was extra delicious and still warm. They pretty much won my lifetime loyalty with that one $15 gesture.
bastian 10y ago
Postmates co-founder here. That is a sentiment and an observation i totally agree with. We're working hard to get this done and we're seeing some first positive signs. It will likely take us a good part of Q2 to get where we want to be though. It is a challenging aspect to our business but i'm 100% confident that we will succeed in making our CS interactions more meaningful and rewarding. I should point out that we're really talking about two types of customer service experiences here. When it comes to our Plus merchants, we're facing way less challenges simply because we're interacting with them via tablets or electronic ordering. Where we don't succeed yet, is the customer service part of our Anywhere product. Here we don't have integrations with all merchants and the error rates are higher and so is the level of complexity when something goes wrong.
- panic 10y ago
  I should point out that we're really talking about two types of customer service experiences here. When it comes to our Plus merchants, we're facing way less challenges simply because we're interacting with them via tablets or electronic ordering. Where we don't succeed yet, is the customer service part of our Anywhere product. Here we don't have integrations with all merchants and the error rates are higher and so is the level of complexity when something goes wrong. That's great, but it's your responsibility to manage this complexity. You should refund the money to your customers when there's an error, not give excuses.
  - refulgentis 10y ago
    "Don't explain why you're not doing this today, just shut up and keep me waiting and complaining" What ever happened to civility?
    - panic 10y ago
      Yeah, you're right, I didn't word that very well. I edited the comment (it used to say "No, sorry, you shouldn't point that out. You should refund the money…")
    - EdHominem 10y ago
      Whatever happened to holding someone to task? The co-founder acknowledged problems but offered reasons instead of a solution. I don't care how hard their job is, I care if they offered a solution for the specific person who complained. (They did not.) If they know they're unable to cope with load they should auto-refund customers who ask rather than waiting till they ramp up their CS team. Misaligned incentives or what?
      - sk5t 10y ago
        Exactly, this is not a company fighting against some force-of-nature problem, curing the sick, or fighting poverty... Explanations for why Postmates doesn't execute well on self-made problems shouldn't hold a lot of water.

by panic 10y ago

calebio 10y ago

I agree. Their customer support has declined significantly over the years due to what I assume to be growth and scaling pains. Then again, their early support methods included a live phone operator. However, it's still no excuse for what they have today. Their support, in my experience, is often lackluster at best and requires the consumer to basically beg for a resolution. I love Postmates and will continue to use them, but competitors like Doordash who have awesome customer service[0] continue to woo me over to their side. [0] - Had a bad delivery yesterday.. their support flow to select exactly what was wrong and what I wanted done about it (bring me new item, refund me, other).

nefitty 10y ago
I had my first bad experience yesterday. There was a big traffic accident and my order ended up taking over an hour. A cs rep called me to apologize and explain the situation and gave me the whole order for free. I didn't expect that at all. Plus, the sandwich was extra delicious and still warm. They pretty much won my lifetime loyalty with that one $15 gesture.

bastian 10y ago

Postmates co-founder here. That is a sentiment and an observation i totally agree with. We're working hard to get this done and we're seeing some first positive signs. It will likely take us a good part of Q2 to get where we want to be though. It is a challenging aspect to our business but i'm 100% confident that we will succeed in making our CS interactions more meaningful and rewarding. I should point out that we're really talking about two types of customer service experiences here. When it comes to our Plus merchants, we're facing way less challenges simply because we're interacting with them via tablets or electronic ordering. Where we don't succeed yet, is the customer service part of our Anywhere product. Here we don't have integrations with all merchants and the error rates are higher and so is the level of complexity when something goes wrong.

panic 10y ago
I should point out that we're really talking about two types of customer service experiences here. When it comes to our Plus merchants, we're facing way less challenges simply because we're interacting with them via tablets or electronic ordering. Where we don't succeed yet, is the customer service part of our Anywhere product. Here we don't have integrations with all merchants and the error rates are higher and so is the level of complexity when something goes wrong. That's great, but it's your responsibility to manage this complexity. You should refund the money to your customers when there's an error, not give excuses.
- refulgentis 10y ago
  "Don't explain why you're not doing this today, just shut up and keep me waiting and complaining" What ever happened to civility?
  - panic 10y ago
    Yeah, you're right, I didn't word that very well. I edited the comment (it used to say "No, sorry, you shouldn't point that out. You should refund the money…")
  - EdHominem 10y ago
    Whatever happened to holding someone to task? The co-founder acknowledged problems but offered reasons instead of a solution. I don't care how hard their job is, I care if they offered a solution for the specific person who complained. (They did not.) If they know they're unable to cope with load they should auto-refund customers who ask rather than waiting till they ramp up their CS team. Misaligned incentives or what?
    - sk5t 10y ago
      Exactly, this is not a company fighting against some force-of-nature problem, curing the sick, or fighting poverty... Explanations for why Postmates doesn't execute well on self-made problems shouldn't hold a lot of water.