Hi Tony, thanks for responding on Twitter. Some quick feedback on my experience as a new customer. Just want to be helpful, I hate to see good companies held back by things that are so easy to fix. My tone here is friendly/helpful, I’m not frustrated or angry or anything, it’s more me wanting to fix something that has got to be costing a lot for a company like yours that’s operating at scale.
Context: I needed to get some Chipotle. My wife said “We’ve got this direct mail piece with a code for $5 off on DoorDash, why don’t you just have it delivered?” Almost two hours later, I tweeted you. Here’s what happened in between.
1. I installed the app, signed in through Google. So far, so good.
2. I see a note in the app saying I won’t be charged for delivery during the first month. Awesome!
3. I begin placing my order, and I’m ready to put in my coupon code to get $5 off, when I see that I can get $20 in credit if I refer someone else, and they get $7. “Hey honey, I should send you my link so you can sign up and get this on your phone, then you place the order and I’ll get $20 and you get $7, plus you can use the coupon code, so then you can get $12 off, and I’ll get a $20 credit.”
4. I install the app on my wife’s phone. Easy enough, again.
5. I check the credit area, but no $7. Hmm, maybe it doesn’t happen instantly? Was that $7 off on the first purchase, or after the first purchase? I don’t know, I continue and go to put together my order.
6. I get my order ready. No $7 credit. I go to put in the $5 promo code, but when I put it in, nothing happens, I just get this screen:
7. I try again, and nothing. I restart the app, same thing. I try the letter “O” instead of zero. No matter what I do, I get this screen where I can put in the code, but then there is no button and no sign of what to do next.
8. I decide to contact support, so I go and click on support in the app, and I get this:
Nothing, just a blank screen. My wife’s phone is on Android, FYI, not the latest version. Moto G6 or something.
9. I switch to my phone and go into the app. I’m on the latest version of Android, Google Pixel XL. Same thing, the support area comes up completely blank. I restart the app, same thing.
10. So I go to Twitter and contact @DoorDash_Help. Now, I don’t blame anyone there, I think this is a system/training problem, not a person problem, although as HR people say, all business problems are people problems. But here’s the back and forth I had:
Nothing huge here, but:
a. I was asked for my wife’s account three times.
b. Spelling/grammar/language errors.
c. They did not correctly diagnose the problem.
Based on the communication, I’m pretty sure your customer support is headquartered overseas. Nothing wrong with that, but I shouldn’t be able to figure that out based on the quality of the support I’m getting.
Finally, nothing was done to make me feel valued, let alone exceed my expectations.
Note: This isn’t about me feeling entitled, I don’t care about $5, or $7, or $12—I get paid enough, I’m only going through all this because it’s interesting to me from my former days working with UX. I care about the process, and I care about startups and it kills me to think of how many other people are having a similar experience and are dropping away as customers and you wouldn’t necessarily know from whatever tracking you’re doing why it’s happening.
Here’s what should have happened:
11. The discount code page shouldn’t have been blank. There should have been a button.
12. When I put in the code, it immediately should have said “This code is only valid for first time users. Sorry!”
13. When I went to the support page, it shouldn’t have been blank.
14. When I contacted your Twitter support, they shouldn’t have asked for my wife’s info three times, used poor English, and missed the core problem.
And in the end, an opportunity was missed to surprise and delight me. Here’s what I mean…
Contrast my DoorDash experience with my experience with Zappos.
I bought a pair of running shoes.
I ordered the wrong size (my fault, right?).
I moved to Hong Kong.
I went running in the shoes, so now they’re worn and dirty, but I realize they’re too small.
I know Zappos has a great return policy, but this is all my fault, and I’m in Hong Kong and I don’t want to pay $60 to ship the shoes back to the US, and Zappos probably doesn’t want to pay $60 to ship a new pair too me in HK. But I figured I’d call up anyway.
“Hi, I ordered the wrong size shoes, and I’ve already used them, and I moved to Hong Kong and it’s expensive to ship stuff back to you in the US. I know this is my fault, but can you help me out somehow?”
“Yeah, no problem. I’ve gone ahead and refunded the full purchase price of the shoes. You don’t need to ship the old ones to us, just find a homeless person or someone who needs them and give them to them.”
It was literally that fast, too.
I’ve told this story 100 times, and here I am five years later telling this story to you. Sure, it cost Zappos $70 in lost revenue, but how many shoes have they sold because I went around raving to everyone who would listen about their amazing customer service?
If the service rep had said “Hey, that’s a bummer, sorry you spent all that time trying to figure this out, and in the end you didn’t even get the discount! Tell you what, I’ll put a $10 credit on your wife’s account,” I would have been thrilled. If it were a $20 credit I would be amazed, and I’d be telling that story to everyone I know.
Hope this is helpful in some way, thanks!
PS:
One last thing I forgot to mention–I tweet the CEO of DoorDash, I get a quick response and invitation to email him–awesome.
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