One day after grappling with a Valentine’s Day surge in orders that led to, in some cases, two-hour delivery delays, Waitr CEO Chris Meaux says the app delivery service plans to hire more employees and work to ensure that it is properly staffed in the field at all times, especially on holidays.
Meaux tells Daily Report the company didn’t foresee having a surge in orders on Tuesday, despite the holiday. The assumption was that more people would eat out on Valentine’s Day rather than stay home and order takeout, he says.
The assumption turned out to be wrong. Instead, Waitr’s order volume surged between 30% and 40% above that of a typical Tuesday, Meaux says, adding that the day seemed more like a Friday night, the busiest night for service.
And because the company staffs drivers based on historic numbers, it was unprepared to handle the surge, he says.
“We have plenty of drivers. We just didn’t have them staffed properly,” says Meaux, who readily accepts the blame for the company’s inability to foresee the increase and the subsequent issues its partner restaurants and app customers encountered on Valentine’s Day.
By the time Waitr could get more employees in the field to help, delivery times had already extended beyond what the company deems to be acceptable, with food arriving for some customers an hour—and in some cases two hours—after orders were placed, he says.
And as the delivery issues snowballed, customers complained they couldn’t get through to customer service as many people tried to contact Waitr at the same time, Meaux adds.
“It pains me to know how many Valentine’s evenings we may have caused heartache for,” Meaux says, just hours after the company issued a statement apologizing to customers. Waiter’s management held a meeting this morning to assess the problems, which Meaux says the company is working to prevent in the future.
“It’s not acceptable by us, not acceptable by our restaurants and not acceptable by customers,” Meaux says, adding that restaurants were not the issue.
Most of the issues were confined to Louisiana as the state is Waitr’s biggest market, Meaux says. Some smaller outlying markets also saw some issues.
Refunds were offered to customers some cases, with Waitr—and not their restaurants—taking the financial hit, Meaux says, declining to reveal how much his company lost due to the delays on Tuesday.
“If we have to refund anyone that means we haven’t done our jobs, and that is not acceptable to me,” he says. “Yesterday is because I didn’t foresee what was coming and I take 100% responsibility for that.”
—Alexandria Burris
