Memorable Customer Stories 101
At Holachef, dealing with the typical customer service issues can make things become quite tricky and difficult. We are kept on our toes all the time.
It doesn’t happen every day, most days are just regular taking care of your regular issues: can’t log in, need helping finding this, this isn’t working, help me do that, etc. But sprinkled on those typical customer experiences are the gems of crazy, hilarious and memorable customer stories that make it all worth it. Here a few from the treasure chest of these memories of our customer care team — we promise to be back with more!
As Big B quips in Baghban, “Tum ho toh hum hai, Tum nahi toh kuch bhi nahi”.
Cheesy we-love-our-customers line from the marketing team. Check.
The Hustler
No one wants free advice. Cross that, no one wants unsolicited free advice. But there was a point where free advice got us a new category. And new fans. We had an angel of a customer who would send us an email every alternate day with some suggestion on improving our business. Literally. Suggestions such as selling jilebis and fafdas during Holi / Dussehra at Ghatkopar Railway station or getting into marriage catering.
One day, he mailed in a suggestion on serving food without oil since he was going on a weight loss regime. The apple had fallen on our head and we gave this a thought. And lo, an entire range of our popular “Zero Oil” or “No added oil” came out of this!
The Insistent Lover
Promises that one cannot keep, can always be managed. This customer had promised his girlfriend that he will order her favourite dish from Holachef. When he remembered his promise and checked out the app, well, the dish was already out of stock. He called us and started mentioning how he had forgotten to order in time and that he had been forgetful on other things in the recent past too which could lead to his relationship breaking up. So we did our bit — for his insistence and his loyalty and his determination — we finally arranged the platter 20 kms away from his location. Happily ever after ending? Err…..not really. There was a problem — he ordered the wrong dish (Pfft!). Thankfully, she didn’t think he was the wrong one for her. *Sniffs* So, who is nominating us for the humanitarian award here?
The Relentless Dude
Once a customer complained that his bill was wrong. We explained that our brownie points (Holachef store credits) had been applied, and hence the lower than expected bill. The customer would not accept this and insisted on speaking to the manager. Despite further explanation, the customer could not be appeased until it was accepted that he was right and “allowed” to pay the higher total. We promptly transferred back brownie points to his account after the payment.
The Kid who knew Better
Well, if you’re our youngest fan, you get our attention and our food even if you don’t have a credit card. Want to know how we met up with a cute voice of a 11-year old who wanted a snack? This young lady called us and placed an order. The deal was simple that she wanted a burger and she could give us the details of her parents credit card to pay for it. Now, how cute is that!!!
The Budget Boy
EMIs are to Indians, the way cheese is to Parisians. We had a customer who had ordered a dish that was around Rs 180 and he did not have the money to pay the full amount. But he found his way out of it — he insisted that we give him EMI option of paying 10/- per day (we are not even kidding!).
The One who made a Sweet Mistake
What does one do when sugary cravings hit you at 3 pm? Order Moong dal halwa. Express delivery. He called us after an hour of waiting insisting he hadn’t gotten his sugar fix yet. Through tracking the order, we found out that it was already delivered to the customer 30 minutes back. .The delivery boy confirmed that he had handed over the parcel to the correct address. We had no clue for almost 20 mins and just as we were giving up, we found out that customer’s maid had collected the dessert and had kept it in the fridge and he had no clue!
The Nails Dude
Sometimes, just sometimes, we have drama and melodrama unfolding in front of our eyes. A customer called in stating that he was shocked to see chef’s nails (yep, an entire nail) in his order of gajar ka halwa. He wanted his dish compensated for — nails OMG. Now with our processes, we felt the likelihood this occurring was rare! Nevertheless, we went into immediate stress and did a thorough investigation and well, it turns out that the nails were actually the inner covering of pistachios. Sigh! We needed him to compensate for our time this time!
So there you go. As a company, we are grateful that we get to be a part of so many people’s lives, albeit in a small way. And while we don’t claim to be perfect all the time, we live for these experiences and hope for more coming our way.
Senti line from marketing to reinforce we-love-our-customers. Check.
Why not take this dialogue further? Tweet us with “Dear Hola_Chef,….” and add in your most memorable experience while dealing with any customer service to date and who knows, you could get surprised?
Thank you for the memories. Here’s to many more!
Till next time. Cheers.
