What do I do when an on-demand delivery order is marked as delivered but wasn't?

[MeatsnFoods]

[Note: The title of this post has been edited by a moderator for clarity.]

If a driver marks the order as "Delivered" but doesn't actually deliver it, there is ZERO solution apparently. They can't dispatch another driver, and the only way to get the product to the customer is to place another order. This is a major issue. There HAS to be a way to dispatch a driver when there is an issue.

[AdamB]

Thanks for your post, @MeatsnFoods.

You are using On-demand Delivery, right? In a situation where a delivery person marks the order delivered but didn't actually deliver it, you'll need to appeal the order directly with PostMates. Prior to contacting them, you'll want to get the delivery token from the order detail page for the order from the Orders page of your Square Online overview page. When PostMates sees that the order wasn't actually delivered, they refund any fees or tips back to you at the end of the month, which we then refund to the seller.

To answer the other part of your question, though, you are correct that there isn't a way to get the missing product to the customer without placing another order. 

[MeatsnFoods]

The refund is secondary to me. The customer not being able to get their order without placing the order twice is the main issue. The customer can't contact postmates themselves, so they have to take your word that if they place the order and pay again, they'll be refunded. That's a challenging conversation to have with someone who's already been waiting a long time.

[AdamB]

I can definitely understand the difficulty of that conversation. Hopefully this is a situation that ourselves, PostMates (or both) can provide a solution for in the future.

[MeatsnFoods]

We've had a number of issues with delivery since this original problem--tbh, the whole thing could be solved by 1) allow the customer to contact postmates to deal with the issue 2) allow the seller to see the same driver tracking the customer sees (it's easy to spot possible issues before the get too out of hand) 3) fix the delivery ID assigned to delivery orders! as of now it is a case-sensitive 14 digit code (!) (for instance: MuGsH2TLXlZfnk) that you have to recite to the CS operator.  Doing this in a loud restaurant setting is really hard and makes the process way harder than it should be.

[Joe]

HI @MeatsnFoods - stepping in here for Adam in his absence. I've gone ahead and pushed your suggestions and feedback over to our Online Store product teams - they work directly with our 3rd party integrations, such as Postmates, and they will want to get eyes on your comments here. Thanks for being specific and taking the time to share!

These types of integrations are somewhat new concerning all the new changes that have taken place to the Online Store since the onset of COVID, so I would imagine that many new features and edits are coming down the pipeline. We will be sure to keep everyone updated here!

Thanks, again!

[joeyD]

Hi, we have been using Square on-demand delivery through Postmates for a few weeks now and have had a mixed experience thus far. We have had several delivery orders be picked up by couriers but the actual delivery to the customer is never completed. The food is never returned to the restaurant either. In all of these situations, we ended up making the order for the customer again, but we have not been refunded for the goods that were lost or the delivery fees. 

In all of these situations where the delivery has not been completed, the only way we found out was when the customer called us asking where their food was. We have no driver info or way to track the delivery. Postmates support was not much help either, as they would not contact the courier to find out where the food was. This puts the restaurant owner in an awkward situation to call back the customer to ask them to call Postmates or the driver for more into. 

We are considering shutting off this service to our customers as Postmates has denied our request for a refund of these deliveries. We cannot be expected to remake the food and pay for it out of pocket every time a courier fails to complete the delivery.

Are others having similar experiences with this service?

Is there a way to have Postmates support phone # added to delivery receipts. Postmates support should handle these situations when the food is picked up and never delivered.

What safeguards is Square and/or Postmates working to protect restaurants? Maybe have the Postmates courier pay for the order when they arrive at the restaurant and then they can be reimbursed once the delivery is completed.    

[AdamB]

Thank you for the feedback, @joeyD. I'm surprised that you weren't able to get refunded through PostMates when it should have been really obvious that the delivery wasn't made. Did they say why they wouldn't reimburse you?

[MeatsnFoods]

When this same thing happened to us, PM customer service said the customer could call and request a refund. It's a really terrible procedure altogether when the courier fails to deliver properly.