I mentioned this in a comment above, but I worked at Domino's and this was 100% encouraged. My manager hammered it into my head that a mistake was just an opportunity to gain a more loyal customer. If someone called with a complaint, we would credit you for a whole new pizza. Drink and dessert too if we really F'd up.

The reason being people will actually stop ordering Domino's if they're upset at a mistake in an order. Even something as silly as not getting ranch dip you paid $0.50 for. Making it up to them with a free item way more valuable than the mistake almost made the customer feel guilty. After using their free pizza credit, a customer was almost guaranteed to order Domino's again within 2 weeks, and would generally order twice as often as they normally would for the rest of the year or longer.

My very first delivery ever, I opened up the heatbag and their whole order slid out and fell onto the floor outside their front door. Maybe still one of my most embarrassing moments ever, I was sure I was going to get fired. When I told my manager about it, he said "This is going to be more powerful than a hundred TV commercials"

Oh, and they have all your orders and previous free credits saved in the computer system that handles orders, tied to both address and phone number (or online account). So if you tried taking advantage of this thing they would just permanently ban you from ordering from our store. This only happened once or twice in my couple years there.

It makes sense. I would definitely order again and again from a place that gave me assurances that they would handle any mistakes.

I got an Indian meal delivered without the rice I ordered. I rang up and they apologized and refunded me straight away... but I still didn't have the rice so the meal I intended on having was ruined. I probably will never order from them again (there's plenty of other Indian food places near me)

I ordered a vegetarian meal from a place I wanted to try. They delivered it, the item had a big green VEGGIE sticker on it, but taking a bite my mouth was filled with meat.

The only recourse I had was to use the app’s help feature and mark it as “incorrect dietary restrictions” and select which item in the order was wrong.

Deliveroo instantly gave me credit for it, which isn’t a refund but I’d use the credit sooner or later so not a big deal.

But now the problem is that I have a neat filled burrito that I can’t eat. I’ve once again accidentally ate meat through no error on my part, so my entire meal is ruined because my mood is ruined. There was a desert I could eat, but that’s it. I ended up waiting 30 minutes for a delicious meal only to end up with just a desert and now I have to spend time to cook my own meal.

If the restaurant would have delivered me another meal then I’d probably still consider ordering from them again, but with the way the app is set up, that I got a measly €10 credit for one part of the meal (still had to pay for delivery, the dessert that I didn’t eat, and a tip cause it was raining). This just meant I’ll never give that restaurant another chance.

Your manager was way too smart to work at domino's.

I had a few friends in customer support. This happened all the time.

If you spend too long going back and forth with a customer, the salary-based calculation of what it costs the company doesn’t make sense. So you give it to them free. But then it’s not like you have any margins that those come out of.

But as your customers learn that wasting support time pays off, the game is surely over!

It turns out that human beings are often inclined not to lie for selfish gain, and there is often a certain degree of social pressure not to lie for selfish gain.

In my experience, it depends what the size of the gain is and/or which environment you are in.

Certain countries I've been to, it's perfectly normal to assume the opposing party is lying for selfish gain, and in return you expect it and act accordingly. In these places, there are no stores with return policies that will just take a customer's word for it.

Certain places have a higher trust society, and that allows some stores to be able to offer returns for refunds leniently...as long as the proportion of scammers stays low. However, even in these "high trust" places, I see that while people are hesitate to lie for selfish gain in small transactions, there is plenty of unscrupulous behavior in large transactions concealed by plausible deniability, aka white collar crime. A lot of it is in the form of you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours with someone else's money. There's almost no way to prove it unless it happened to be written down or recorded on audio/video.

Sure, it's a minority that would run a scam like this, but the normal experience is that if you leave an available exploit, it will be used.

Though the people who claim that doesn't happen enough to be significant for other pizza delivery systems seem to know more than I do.

There is no social pressure when you're alone on the phone with some faceless customer service employee.

To restate: “It will be used by a minority” — yes, we agree on this.

I absolutely feel social pressure when I’m alone on the phone with some faceless customer service employee. If you do not, that’s your choice, but it’s not universal.

Generally people trying to scam customer service out of a free pizza doesn't seem to happen at scale at least based on my experience in the food industry.

Folks who demand free food do it regardless of if it can be done or not and most everyone else just shrugs their shoulders and doesn't want to talk to anyone about their experience.

Most people know that they can harass customer support to do ridiculous things, but they don’t act on it. Maybe because they don’t think it’s an honest way to act, or maybe they don’t think it’s worth their time to harass customer support over something like free pizza.

Businesses are free to, and often do, ban highly unprofitable customers. Compensated product only makes business sense if its value is less than expected future margins plus the risk cost of the reputational hit to the company.

Every traditional delivery place will already do this, call Dominos and make up some way they got your pizza wrong and they'll send a new one. The benefit from gaming the system isn't worth it for most people.

Papa John’s is kinda unique in that they game themselves quite often and use it to their advantage. I will order pizza and have zero problem with the delivery or order and I’ll get one of those “we’re sorry” postcards. It’s just a better than average coupon and since they expire quickly there’s pressure to use it.

I’m kinda surprised (and happy) that all these delivery startups haven’t figured out that bs customer service can be a way to make money.

These delivery companies running at a loss are valued almost entirely based on growth in MAUs. Giving a customer a free pizza may be worth it if it keeps them on the platform, considering how much it costs to aquire a new customer.

Perhaps because of this Doordash has been aggressively cutting their refund policies. If an item is not delivered you don't get a full refund and often don't even get a refund for the item price + tax on said item.

How is that legal? Is there something in the terms of use for the app that you have to accept

The automatic refund gives that scam price, but if you insist on the full refund plus tax you'll still get it

Not been the case for me unfortunately, even after escalating. Ordered some stuff and everything but the condiments were destroyed on delivery. Couldn't get a full refund.

Did you try escalating and saying you will do a chargeback?

well from the customer view (i think i have been this person a few times).. i dont exist to keep your company afloat. I trusted you to do what you said, and i gave you my money. and you didnt do what you said you would do.

Dear Company, if you cant do your job you shouldnt exist

Self promoting tip: hire people who feel this