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foodpanda’s Online Support Replied Like Mark Zuckerberg; Conversation Shared Over 2.3K Times Online

2021-01-26 , 9:57 am

With the advancements in artificial technology, there are growing fears that these intelligent machines will render many of our jobs obsolete.

But there’s one job that an intelligent bot will never be able to do effectively: customer service.

And this little tale of an incompetent foodpanda support employee makes this abundantly clear.

An Unfortunate Menu Change

These days, if you’re hungry at 3am in the morning, you don’t have to rummage through your fridge for a 3-day old sandwich that most dogs wouldn’t eat.

With just a few taps of your thumbs on your phone, you can have your favourite meal delivered to your doorstep within 20 minutes.

But that’s not exactly what happened to Facebook user Kitty when she tried to order a McDonald’s meal from foodpanda.

After arriving at the outlet, her rider discovered that they had changed the menu after the order, so they couldn’t prepare the food Kitty wanted.

So the rider informed Kitty, and told her that McDonald’s asked her to cancel the order.

Frustrated, Kitty contact foodpanda’s support team, but her woes would only grow.

foodpanda’s Online Support Replied Like Mark Zuckerberg

Kitty explained the situation to the support team, hoping they would cancel her order for her.

But the foodpanda employee seemed to have trouble understanding what the customer was saying.

Kitty must have wondered if Mark Zuckerberg was working for foodpanda, because his generic, template-like response didn’t address the customer’s concerns.

And this continued throughout their conversation. The foodpanda employee also started calling Kitty dear for some reason, as if he were her grandfather.

What must have irked Kitty is that the foodpanda employee seemed to believe the information on the app over what the customer was saying.

For instance, despite being repeatedly told that McDonald’s asked her to cancel her order, the foodpanda employee insisted that her food was being prepared.

Rider Confirmed The Customer Has to Cancel Her Order

Confused and probably annoyed, Kitty contacted her rider once again and told him about the instruction she was given by the foodpanda employee.

The rider confirmed that the support team needed to cancel the order, as McDonald’s changed their menu and could no longer prepare the meal she ordered.

“Kindly Wait For the Order”

Despite sending a screenshot of her conversation with the rider, the bot/foodpanda employee simply asked her to wait for her order.

Yes, she was told to wait for a non-existent order that would never come.

In spite of her frustrations and hunger, Kitty was thankful to the rider for helping to resolve the issue.

And since the support staff refused to cancel the order, the rider had to deliver her order without any actual food.

At this point, Kitty lost it and asked if the foodpanda employee was human or a bot.

The customer was then given two options:

Wait for her food to be delivered, even though there was no food in the first place
Cancel her order but pay for it anyway

Kitty’s post has since been shared over 2,300 times.

It’s unclear if the issue was resolved, but foodpanda has since responded.

foodpanda Investigating the Matter

Speaking to Mothership, a spokesperson for the food delivery firm said that they were “truly sorry for the frustrating incident”.

They are currently investigating the matter and have been in touch with the customer, hoping to rectify the issue.

“We take customer feedback very seriously and are taking steps to ensure that protocols are adhered to by our customer service teams, riders, and merchant partners to ensure the best possible experience for everyone,” the spokesperson said.

I guess we’ll never know if the foodpanda employee Kitty spoke to truly was a human.

Featured Image: ThamKC / Shutterstock.com & Facebook