A food delivery app user in Singapore has taken to Facebook on July 10 to share an experience that happened to her involving a slightly more senior food delivery rider, which left her understandably sympathetic.

Ordered food for five pax

The woman said that she had ordered hawker food and drinks for five persons via the foodpanda app from Maxwell Food Centre at around 7:30pm on Friday, July 9.

At about 8:15pm, the order arrived.

Order arrived but short of most food items

A man, who appeared to be in his 60s, made the delivery, according to the customer.

However, the order was wrong.

Only one food item arrived, accompanied by five drinks.

According to the foodpanda rider, the items were handed over to him by a consolidator at the hawker centre, who is tasked with arranging the orders and passing them on to those doing the deliveries to complete matching the food with the correct recipients.

The foodpanda rider said he was even told that the order was confirmed to be correct when he went to pick it up.

Rider offered to go back to get rest of missing items

The customer then showed the foodpanda rider the order she had placed on her app.

Despite not demanding that the foodpanda rider solve the issue, he offered without hesitation to go back to the hawker centre to get the remaining items.

The customer said she accepted the offer naturally "without any fuss".

Started to rain

At around 9pm, it started raining.

At 9:10pm, foodpanda called the customer to inform her that the delivery rider was at her door, but he had not turned up yet.

At around 9:15pm, the foodpanda rider returned -- but with only one additional food item.

Stalls had closed for the day

He was drenched and extremely apologetic by this time.

According to him, the food consolidator had knocked off for the day, and some of the stalls that the customer ordered from had closed.

Offered S$50 to not report matter

At this point, the delivery rider was on the brink of tears, according to the customer, and he even offered to reimburse her S$50 out of his own pocket, so that he would not be penalised for the incomplete wrong order.

"I firmly rejected his offer and told him that it’s ok," the woman said, adding that she understood it could very well not have been the delivery rider's fault.

The delivery rider also pleaded with the customer to call foodpanda to inform them of the situation on his behalf, so that he wouldn’t get into trouble.

The woman said she then managed to get her order updated via the app, and had three food items removed.

More flexibility appreciated

By the end of her post, the woman admonished the food delivery platform to exercise some flexibility when dealing with their delivery riders.

"foodpanda, you really need to be less rigid and more compassionate," she wrote.

This was understood to mean that problems stemming from failed deliveries do get attributed to delivery riders, who lack the know-how to explain and defend themselves sufficiently and convincingly, or might not have any recourse to appeal any decisions against them.

In this case, the elderly man might not even be confident or able to fully express and explain his problem to the help centre for riders to absolve himself of blame.

It is also understood that riders deemed to have committed too many or too severe violations run the risk of being suspended or ejected from the food delivery app, which affects their livelihood.

Responses

In response to the woman's post, commenters commiserated with the delivery rider's plight and applauded the customer for not making his life any harder.

Others highlighted that the trip could have been ended by the customer after the first incomplete delivery, as the next best option was to allow another rider to send the missing items in a follow-up delivery.

Top photo via Google Maps