Just-Eat: Did Somebody Say... Piss-Poor Customer Service?

Back in the pre-Covid Utopia that was 2008, I wrote about my experiences with a relatively young company - Just-Eat.

It was a bit of a mixed bag. The convenience of ordering online rather than having to phone the restaurant directly was a big selling point. The problems back then were customer service - how things were handled when they went wrong. Back then there were definite issues, especially trying to contact them out of office hours.

Since then Just-Eat have gone from strength-to-strength and are now a widely recognised brand, and you can probably order from most restaurants in your home town from them.

For the most part their customer service improved too. Mistakes can (and will) happen - and how they deal with them is key to whether consumers will continue to use them. So if a restaurant didn't pick up on your order within 20 minutes or so then receiving a courtesy phone call from a Just Eat representative wasn't unusual. Missing an item or an order gone astray? Contacting the restaurant was usually enough to resolve the issue, if not then the Just-Eat staff had your back to help sort things out.

Recently it looks like things have changed, and not for the better.

Not long ago I had an issue with some items missing from an order, and the food was cold too. Phoning the take-away using the number provided on the website passed me straight through to an automated phone line ran by Just-Eat themselves, which resulted in a short message to use their website to make a complaint, or contact the restaurant directly. One Google search later to find out how to complain I entered the details and waited.

This was followed by an email from Just-Eat:

Just Eat Takeaway.com (Just Eat UK)
X XXX, XX:XX GMT
Hi Dan,
Thank you for contacting us about your recent order [Order Number Removed]. We're sorry to hear you didn't have the great experience we wanted for you.
We've looked into everything in detail to see what we can do. On this occasion, we're unable to offer a refund or compensation based on all the information we have.
We appreciate your understanding and we hope to have the chance to provide a better experience for you next time.
Thanks again for getting in touch with us.
Just Eat


Further emails were exchanged - but I may as well not have wasted my time. Short version: Computer Says NO!

As it was one meal (six or seven pounds worth of food) it's not the end of the World, so I let it be.

I've ordered stuff between then and now and had no more problems, until today.

This time the entire order went missing. Their website says it had been delivered, but God only knows who to. So, contact the restaurant via the phone number, which passes me back to that oh-so-familiar Just-Eat automated phone line.

Complain on the website, which results in me getting an identical email as the previous time, otherwise known as "Computer Says NO!". I've also tried going via their Facebook, all to no avail. So this time it's a £20 order gone, and no way of getting a refund short of spending more time with the bank reversing the charges, or taking them to the small claims court - which seems like a lot of effort for £20.

I did manage to track down an actual phone number for the takeaway, and had an apologetic but not helpful conversation with them. According to them once the delivery driver has the food it's Just-Eat's responsibility. The take-away didn't have any way of contacting the drivers (or even have the name of whoever it was) as they work for Just-Eat rather than them, and Just-Eat don't provide them with any tracking information.

Thankfully these days Just-Eat aren't the only company locally taking online orders, so I'll be switching to one of them, probably Deliveroo - as I'm led to believe that they do have actual customer support rather than just an automated service that might as well say: We've got your money and you can't have any of it back, so there!

For those of you who think I may be laying this on a bit thick, then may I suggest that you go to https://www.facebook.com/justeat and try reading the comments on their posts, you'll see a lot of people having the same issues.

Just-Eat? It might as well be Just-Go-Hungry!

Just-Eat? Just Wait more like!

The great British take-away! OK, so we know that take-aways aren't exactly the healthy option, but every now and then the temptation is too great and a pizza is the only cure.

Being a child of the internet age (well, second childhood anyway) I rather like being able to order and pay for my takeaways online rather than having to hunt out menus, phone the restaurant (how old-fashioned!) and hope that I've got enough cash on me to pay for it.

Dominoes Pizza used to be my online take-away of choice, although at the time it was a choice of one. Now, however many companies are vying for our online orders. So alongside established regulars like Dominoes and Pizza Hut (which sadly doesn't deliver to where I live) are newcomers Just-Eat.

The Just-Eat service doesn't just provide pizzas. They provide online services for existing local take-away restaurants, so depending on where in the country you live they may provide links to Kebab Shops, Indian Restaurants, Chinese Takeaways or Fish and Chip shops. A copy of the restaurants menu is provided online, and you place the order over the web.

If you aren't sure about paying upfront for your meal then you can also choose to pay cash-on-delivery. After placing the order you'll receive an e-mail confirmation of the order, as well as an order number and an estimated delivery time (around 45 minutes for our local take-away).

I've used this service a few times in the past couple of months, and generally speaking it has worked well, with the food arriving within the estimated time.

Last night, however, things didn't go as smoothly. After placing the order, paying for it, and receiving the e-mail confirmation I sat down to watch TV, safe in the knowledge that some take-away treats were winging their way towards me. This was at 9.25pm. The estimated delivery time was 10:05pm.

Time passes. So does the delivery deadline.

More time passes. By 10:30pm I was getting a bit concerned. But, as it was a Friday night maybe they were busy. Patience is a virtue.

Even more time passes. By 10.45pm patience may be a virtue, but starvation was a distinct possibility. At this point I gave in and phoned the restaurant to check on the order.

"Ah, erm, we haven't had any internet orders."

After a short discussion the restaurant's manager (and even though this wasn't their fault) they re-took the order, sent it out to me, and even though they couldn't get in touch with anyone at Just-Eat to double-check it, they sent me my meal without charging me a second time for it.

The manager even phoned me back to apologise about it, and to let me know that the couldn't reach anyone at Just-Eat regarding this.

As Just-Eat do have a complaints procedure I filled in a complaints form and submitted it.

This is the confirmation that you receive:

Your query message has been sent to Just-Eat.co.uk!

Our Customer Care personel will look into your query as soon as possible and get back to you with a reply at the earliest possible time. Usually this happens within 10-20 minutes. Please note that during busy hours reply can take longer.

Thank you for contacting us!

Can take longer? I'm still waiting for any contact from them (as a side note - I suppose I should be worried about the spelling mistakes on the website. Can you spot the one in the above message which was copied directly from their site?).

The meal finally arrived at 11:25pm - two hours after ordering, and an hour and a quarter after the estimated delivery time. I've got to admit that by the time I received it I didn't really want it any more, but as I couldn't get in touch with anyone at Just-Eat, canceling the order wasn't an option.

Checking through their website it appears that their customer service stops at 10pm. This is a bit of a problem for take-aways, as they tend to deliver through to the early hours of the morning. So if you do have any problems "out of hours" as it were, then forget any help from their customer services. They've already gone home. Presumably picking up a take-away en-route rather than trusting to their online ordering service.

Next time I feel a bit peckish on an evening I think I'll just make a sandwich. It'll be healthier, cheaper, and I'll get the damn thing when I want it rather than a couple of hours later.