I would like to add comment here but I think the letter says it all, we received the worst possible service from Mr Delivery last night and I simply cannot keep quiet about it. Here is an ‘Open Letter’ to Mr Delivery below.

TO whom it may concern,

We placed an order this evening (the 2nd January 2009) at 8pm online as we have done many times previously.

By 9:30pm we had heard nothing, our order was not confirmed as usual. We tried repeatedly to contact Mr. Delivery Sea Point with no answer. It was our intent at this stage to cancel the order as we had made other eating arrangements. Eventually someone did answer and said that our order was “on its way”, with expected arrival approximately 10 minutes.

After 20 minutes had elapsed and we had still not heard anything; we called Posticino’s directly to check if our order had actually been collected. They informed us it had just been collected a few minutes earlier. After waiting another 10 minutes we still had no joy. We called Mr. Delivery Sea Point once again, thankfully someone answered and then informed us that the restaurant had been very busy, causing the delay. A few minutes later the door bell rang and the order was delivered, cold, of course. According to the driver, the delay was because of the huge amount of traffic on the roads. (I basically live 3km’s from the restaurant, so that is pretty hysterical!)

I indicated to the driver that I had opted to pay via credit card for our order as I usually do, but this was not reflected on the slip. The driver said that the office would be contacting us to confirm payment. He seemed happy to accept our signature, but left without leaving us any copies. This was at 10pm; at this point we had actually already eaten after waiting so long and retired for the evening. Pretty exhausted and disappointed about the whole ordeal.

Not long after, we were woken up by the door bell, I was quite shocked to find that the delivery guy, Kingsley, had returned and was demanding immediate payment. We explained to him calmly that he should contact us in the morning to claim his money as we were now in bed and not willing to conclude this at this hour.

He then threatened us and said he would contact the police to claim his money. He was unreasonably aggressive and persistent. We eventually managed to get him to leave the door. A few minutes later the ‘manager’ of Mr. Delivery Sea Point called us again, to claim their money. No apology was offered whatsoever. We explained our story and to our immense surprise, instead of offering an apology for causing us so much hassle, he proclaimed that it was actually our fault the payment didn’t go through when we made our online order. He refused to take any responsibility and then advised us to take up the matter with the driver!

We then went back to sleep, only to be woken up again at midnight (00:00) by an insistent and persistent knock on our front door (which is in a secure complex). We opened the door to two armed policemen and the aforementioned driver. The police were quiet while the driver ranted on about his money and us not having any sympathy for him. The police repeatedly told him to keep his voice down as it would disturb the other residents of our building. We explained the situation completely and calmly to the police officers and the driver once more which we believe was very generous of us given the circumstances. In an effort to calm the situation I offered to pay the driver in cash, less his tip and delivery fee, which he declined with the police as witnesses.

To be made to feel like criminals in our own home amongst our neighbours and friends is completely and utterly unacceptable for the sake of two pizzas. Not only was this a complete invasion of personal space, it completely ruined our evening. This kind of behavior can only be construed as harassment on the part of Mr. Delivery. The very epitome of Poor service delivery. The Manager spoke to me as though I was a complete idiot – he was thoroughly insulting and unsympathetic – in all fairness we believe he had the same attitude towards his employee.

We cannot imagine how something like this can be acceptable in an organization such as Mr. Delivery in a world class city like Cape Town. We are also astounded by the management’s lack of control and accountability in this situation, as we feel it could have been easily rectified.

In closing, we would like to have some basic questions answered.

1) What is an acceptable turnaround time for food ordered? When we ordered the delivery time was indicated to be 9:05pm and it had not arrived by 10pm (2 hours).

2) Is it acceptable that food is delivered cold?

3) After a late delivery where Mr. Delivery was at fault with the billing, is it acceptable to be harassed for a further two hours after the fact?

4) Who is responsible for the systems in place at Mr. Delivery, the client, or Mr. Delivery?

5) How is it possible that our order was placed successfully online and yet our payment details were somehow misplaced?

6) In a matter like this, especially given that it is impossible to get through to your call centre’s, who does one phone in this situation?


UPDATE: 2010/01/04 – Response from Mr Delivery

I received this email from Laurence Levine yesterday.

Dear Mr. Jackson

Please accept my humble apologies this type of behaviour is definitely not condoned by my Company and all guilty parties will be dealt with accordingly .

I am currently oversees and I will get my Head of Operations to take care of this matter in my absence( Mrs Zettie Potgieter ) .

However I will be following up personally  on this matter on my return to SA  .

In the meanwhile I would like to offer you two complimentary pizza’s and free delivery on your next order or if you wish to eat at Posticino I will pay for your next meal there  .

Lastly thank you kindly for contacting me with this unacceptable service without customers like you I can never fix problems such as these .

Kind regards

Laurence Levine

While I am thankful for the gesture and also the apology, I really hope something is done to prevent something like this in future. Mrs Zettie Potgieter did indeed call me today, and I discussed the issue with her further. She indicated to me that she would be following up with me further based on what action was taken. I will be posting all the details here as they come in.