There’s a national chain of sub shops (no, not that one. or that one. ) near our house and we like to get dinner there some evenings. There’s an app, of course, and usually the wait time is such that I need to leave to go pick them up shortly after I place the order. The subs are good too.
Earlier this month on a Sunday evening I fired up the app and placed an order. With the two subs, chips, and drinks it was about thirty bucks. I got the expected wait time, waited, then headed out.
When I arrived I could see the store was dark – though the Open side was lit – and there was a sign on the door. I got out and approached the door to see the sign more clearly. It was hand written and stuck to the door with the stickers they use to close up the wrappers on subs. And it said that they were closed for a family emergency – starting at 4 pm that day – but they would be open the next day.
Which did me no good. It was already later than I wanted to eat so I snapped a picture of the sign and got back in my car.
We had taco bell for dinner that night.
The next day I reached out to the corporate office via a satisfaction survey link in the email confirmation. I explained what had happened, asked for a refund and noted I had a picture of the sign – though there was no place to upload it in the form.
A few hours later I got a very apologetic email back that they would reach out to the management for the store – who would get back to me.
I didn’t reply – there wasn’t anything to say – and waited for a response from the management.
About a week passed and I hadn’t heard anything from the store. I did get an email asked me to rate the response I got from corporate, which I ignored since I couldn’t judge if they were helpful until I actually got a response from the store. Sigh. Pointless automation…
With no response, I replied back to corporate via the email and asked if they had any updates – or if I should go a different route. I included a note about the transaction being posted instead of refunded, the details about the order from the app, and the photo of the sign.
They responded back fairly quickly again – still super apologetic – but sadly couldn’t provide a timeframe when I might hear back. They suggested I reach out to the store directly.
Now, I’m not great at confrontation. I prefer the civilized exchange of emails to going in all ablaze demanding a refund.
But, it was dinner time again and off I went. I went into the store and up to the counter and asked if I could see about a redo or a refund on an online order. (I actually would have preferred a redo since it was dinner time.)
The manager was brought over – but not the manager for that store. It was a manager from another store covering and he politely asked how he could help.
I explained the situation again, showed him the order info and amount, and the photo of the sign. He apologized, but wasn’t able to help me right then since it wasn’t his store. He would have to call the manager of that location to see what they could do. I left my contact info and departed – hungry still.
I was driving down the road when my phone rang and I pulled off to answer it safely. It was the manager for the other store who had talked to the manager of that store and gotten permission to do a refund – along with an apology to pass along about the app being open while the store was closed.
He took my credit card info over the phone – at least I didn’t have to go back – and said that it might take a couple of days for the refund to be processed since it was the weekend. But, if it didn’t, he would have the receipt at the store and I could stop back.
We had taco bell again that night.
I checked my bank account and it looks like the refund has finally been processed. So, in the new year I guess, we can order from there again.
I’m left with questions:
- Why didn’t the app get turned off if the store was closed?
- How many other people placed an order on the app or on Door Dash or whatever?
- Wouldn’t they all have had issues?
- Why didn’t the manager reach out to everyone that had an unfulfillable order?
- And what, if anything, did corporate do other than issue empty apologies?
I guess it all worked out in the end, but I would have liked a more efficient outcome with fewer steps. If the manager hadn’t been able to sort out the refund, that would have been it and I would have deleted the app.
There’s only so far I’ll go for a sub, after all. And lots of places to get one.
Including that one place.
And that other place.