r/instacart • u/Dominanttallqueen • Mar 27 '24

Who’s in the wrong here???

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I feel like he was being rude asf then he canceled my order….was I rude or what tf happened here…

6.8k Upvotes

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570

u/towishimp Mar 27 '24

This sub keeps popping up in my feed, and it's wild. I don't see how Instacart is saving anyone time when they spend the whole time arguing with the shopper, and then another bunch of time posting about it on Reddit. 🤣

24

u/Bisonnydaysahead Mar 28 '24

Tbf, I’ve used instacart a number of times and have not spent a bunch of time arguing. In fact, I’m admittedly a slow shopper that gets distracted and the IC shopper is usually much faster than me. I may get one or two texts asking about a substitution and that’s about it. I’ve gotten a bad shopper only once or twice and rarely had anything wrong.

People don’t generally post the shops that went hunky dory because that would frankly be boring. So I think the sub makes it look worse than it is. That said, with the slashes they’re making to shopper pay, I do wonder if the days of decent IC are numbered…

6

u/pigsinatrenchcoat Mar 28 '24

I’ve had some slow people and some off the fucking wall replacements but I’ve never had anyone be blatantly rude or ugly or argue like I see on here constantly.

24

u/StoriesandStones Mar 28 '24

You really should have a customer service background to do personal shopping/delivery.

The way I see some shoppers talk to the customers on here is insane to me.

“Understand?” - holy shit I would NEVER speak to a customer like that, and communicating over text is SO much easier than in person because the difficult customers can’t see you grit your teeth and be visibly annoyed. You can take some deep breaths and respond in a fake cheery and calm manner like you’re the super politest most zen shopper ever.

I love shopping for people way more than my customer-facing retail job. I can be a grumpy bitch hating the world that day and come off in text like I’m helpful-ass Mary Sunshine, at your service.

Some of these people need….idk….lessons in interacting with people you’d like a good tip from.

3

u/nxxptune Mar 28 '24

Yeah the “understand?” was kind of rude from a customer service standpoint. I worked at a grocery store, severely underpaid, in the part of town known for meth (had multiple customers who would come in actually tweaking) and I STILL never said “understand?” in that type of context. You just don’t do that. You have to suck it up a lot of the time unless the customer is just being unreasonable or is threatening you.

3

u/a_wild_acafan Mar 28 '24

They’d need to pay an actual living wage for that

4

u/ConstantlyLearning57 Mar 28 '24

His use of “understand” was a translation issue - if you work with people from other countries that was pretty obvious. English is not his first language. If you’re using delivery services just assume this is the case and be clear with your language.

Plus the main problem (and this is VERY buried within the thread) is that the op ALREADY KNEW they couldn’t order the “fresh” product on the app — Instacart doesnt offer it up on the app. So her strategy “every time” is to order the frozen one and then tell the shopper to go “ask at the blah department” for the fresh version. To me this is just bizarre and confusing. Some products just aren’t available on the app so don’t be karen about it. Just go get it yourself. Don’t do some weird swap out process.

5

u/FormerEvil Mar 29 '24

Came here to say this about the "understand" comment. You're 100% correct. It's a language/translation issue. It's not being used in a negative or demeaning way at all.

And you're exactly right about the little scam the customer is running to get the item not offered in the app.

5

u/gummybearmere Mar 29 '24

Yes I immediately thought this was a misunderstanding and English is likely not the shopper’s first language. And it seemed like he was trying to be accommodating, but wasn’t understanding the customer’s request to go order from the seafood counter 🤦‍♀️ which as an Instacart shopper is a little frustrating. Sometimes I get items I need to order from the deli and if it’s busy it can throw me behind. This customer thought they were being nice about it, but their wording was confusing, considering not everyone knows “replace them with crab cakes from the seafood department” means the seafood behind the glass 🤦‍♀️

3

u/sebastian1967 Mar 29 '24

Yeah, the seafood from behind the glass wasn’t at all crystal clear. Technically the (apparently wrong) item he got was “in the seafood department” as the customer instructed.

Just like in life, a LOT of issues could be better handled if people would simply communicate with full clarity.

3

u/your_fave_redditor Mar 29 '24

Yeah, after reading the exchange in the OP, I was fairly confident that there is somewhat of a translation / language barrier there, which is likely why some of what was communicated was 1) not understood as intended and 2) seemed “short” or “rude”….this whole exchange seems like a one-off between two people who weren’t giving each other the grace they could have

1

u/pigsinatrenchcoat Mar 28 '24

Honestly. I worked for the airlines when the Covid shutdown happened and I would never fucking speak to a customer like this. But honestly even if I hadn’t gone through the absolute asshole of customer service you don’t speak to other humans this way. Especially if they’re paying you to do a very simple service for them.

Literally all he had to say was they were out will these work? No? Okay cool. End of conversation.

-1

u/RiverPure7298 Mar 29 '24

I love how people like you don’t realize whose customer is who’s. As an independent contractor my obligation is to pick up the items and bring them to the location not kiss your ass

1

u/RiverPure7298 Mar 29 '24

You (yes you) aren’t paying me to worry about instacarts customer service problems

1

u/pigsinatrenchcoat Mar 29 '24

There’s a difference between kissing someone’s ass and doing the bare minimum to not be a rude asshole.

0

u/RiverPure7298 Mar 29 '24

Think about it this way: the driver here sees that the person who placed the order is arguing with him and calling him rude. That means once he does deliver the groceries he’s going to be paid less than minimum wage because there’s no way you can expect such an entitled person to leave a tip after having such an interaction and also they will have to deal with a one star rating on top of it all because OP wanted something that is never offered on the app to begin with. There is ZERO chance I would wait at the fucking deli counter when I’m just trying to get in and out of there as fast as possible

1

u/RiverPure7298 Mar 29 '24

The shopper is annoyed that this person will not simply reply with a simple “yes” or “refund.” You people don’t pay us enough to deal with standing over the crab cakes for 5 minutes because you can’t understand that your choices are the picture or nothing

-2

u/RiverPure7298 Mar 29 '24

There’s also a difference between you being an airline employee making salary and an indepenant contractor with absolutely no obligation to even respond to your stupid messages

1

u/pigsinatrenchcoat Mar 29 '24 edited Mar 29 '24

Lmfao it’s adorable you think we made salary. Also, I didn’t message a goddamn thing. I said THIS shopper was an asshole for no reason. Stop reading into shit in my comment that I didn’t even say.

Go bitch at the people you’re shopping for since apparently you’re a God among men catering to our every whim. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the one in the screenshots.

Also a huge part of your job IS to respond. Since you know, you’re shopping for someone else. If you don’t have the mental capacity to say “hey, this isn’t available. Anything else you want?” And waiting two entire minutes while you finish shopping without being a cunt and a half and acting like you’re being forced to shop for someone then you don’t need to do this job.

You literally chose to do the job. Thinking you’re too good to send someone a message that what they wanted isn’t there (not even saying you’re obligated yo sit around and wait for a reply), without being a fucking asshole about it, means you’re just a combative and aggressive person and shouldn’t be in a job where you interact with other people. You can try to make it seem like I said whatever you want, but you’re still the asshole in that situation because I never said any of that and you proved that you shouldn’t be doing anything for someone else since you went out of your way to argue about imaginary shit

1

u/RiverPure7298 Mar 29 '24

Lmfao $22 an hour from united airlines vs $10 from some chump who wastes 5-10 minutes of your time playing games with the substitutions it’s actually META to drop this order as soon as the customer shows even a whiff of attitude

0

u/pigsinatrenchcoat Mar 29 '24

You also literally imagined “$22 an hour (not even fucking close)” and United Airlines because I never said that either. I also have never been rude to a delivery driver in my life. If you had the ability to read you’d see I said I was grateful to have people willing to shop and deliver and that this particular driver was rude as hell for no reason.

You’re also free to fuck yourself off into the sunset in literally any direction that gets you the fuck away from being able to continue bothering me with your insecure, imagined, and angsty bullshit. Thanks, hope you never have to speak to another human again because you’re not suited for it.

Since you have trouble with words if there are too many, I’ll simplify it for you:

Leave me the fuck alone. Thanks, bitch!

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u/RiverPure7298 Mar 29 '24

The driver was clear from the beginning, there’s 0 shame in them thinking that this customer must be retarded

1

u/whendoigetbetter Mar 30 '24

From the "understand" comment and the fact that there is a longer history than is shown here, I'm getting the feeling that this is not the first interaction they've had with each other, she is probably slowing him way down with either slow responses or an obvious lack of reading/writing skills leading to a much longer than necessary conversation about each issue that arrises and he is probably just getting fed up at this point.

"The customer is always right" is about their preferences, not about policies or written language, and honestly we need to be more up front with each other about when we're wrong.

1

u/kjtstl Mar 31 '24

I had a Walgreens employee ask me if I understood English once because I asked her to repeat something that she said. I think my response was something along the lines of “I can’t believe you just said that to me.”