First and foremost I am not against any religion, culture or food practices that one follows. I respect and believe in mine just like you respect and believe in yours
I am not a person who would write long posts but today Fresh-menu has given me an opportunity to do so which I never thought would occur. I am writing about an incident that took place on the 19th March Sunday 11:00 PM IST.
I am Hindu a vegetarian and a Vishwakarma Brahman in religious and cultural practices I follow since, my presence on earth.
So I was heading out to meet a friend for dinner and had my mom alone back home because dad was out on a trip and would be back anytime that night.
Since I was heading out I thought I would have my mom have a meal of her choice and asked her what she would like to have and mum having tried a few different cuisines she wanted to try something different and asked me to take the lead and I thought of Fresh-menu since they serve world cuisine and their menu is fancy. At about 8:52 IST I place an order for Mexican burrito bowl/Dal chawal arancini(VEG) combo, a pineapple ice tea, and a banana cake.
Usually, Freshmenu takes about 45 mins to deliver from the moment you place an order apparently I received a message saying that the delivery will be delayed due to the high volume of orders for that night which I was totally okay with. At about 10:20 the order was delivered.
My mom is 56 years old a 10th Pass out and dad 61 years old and a BA LLB retired government employee. Mom can barely read and write English but can do it and takes her own sweet time and I appreciate her for her skills being just a 10th pass out from the 70’s but that’s not the point here.
Having lived 5 to 6 decades of religious and cultural practices of a typical orthodox Brahman family I think everyone can understand the level of dedication and depth in the religious practices and mainly concerning the Food habits being a Brahman.
So, it happened that the delivered food consisted of Mexican burrito rice bowl/ CHICKEN SAUSAGE PEPPERY FRY(Non-veg) which I never order for, Pineapple ice tea and banana cake.
Mom certainly believes I would never order a non-vegetarian dish for her and I bet I wouldn’t. Why on earth would I? We have been following a strict vegetarian diet since birth which comes from the religious and cultural practices. Believe me my mom doesn’t know what a chicken sausage looks or tastes like she hasn’t seen a chicken sausage her entire life not even at this moment.
But due to the irresponsible work ethic of Fresh-menu employees, my mom ate chicken sausage thinking heartbeat something different she has never had, never seen. Since she had asked for different food she hadn’t tried she didn’t think much and believed it to be a different dish and didn’t realize it was a non-vegetarian dish. I am certain it’s not her fault to have eaten the food. The mistake is from the FRESH-MENU TEAM and this is totally unacceptable if in the first hand you Fresh-menu team did your job right.
I am back home at 11:00 and that’s when I am asking mom if she enjoyed the food and her reaction was I liked the rice bowl but she did mention that she felt weird about one dish which was chicken sausage which mom was not aware of. That’s when I looked at the delivered food package and I skipped a heartbeat the moment I realized she had consumed chicken sausage without her consent. I quickly took the package away and didn’t want her to find out that she had consumed chicken cause I know how much it would affect her mentally and physically taking into consideration her religious beliefs and practices followed for over 5 decades to the present moment. I absolutely know how someone of great religious and cultural standards would feel when something like this happens.
Immediately I tried the customer support to inquire and report about the incident since it was already 11:00 the customer support was shut and I couldn’t do much. So, I called the delivery guy to inquire why he did so and why he didn’t do a thorough check before handing out the food and asked him to pass his manager’s contact info who he reports to and the story went further on where I spent about an hour and a half talking different managers and finally the Operations manager Mr Ali who works out of the Freshmen corporate office in kormangala and reported the issue to him. All I had happening was every manager just cutting a sorry figure out there and talking about refunding the money. I wonder how on earth can one talk about a refund when they have done the damage to a level concerning one’s religious and cultural practices. Further on I asked Mr Ali to look into the issue and keep me in the loop about the steps they are taking in order to find out about why this incident happened and what are they going to do about it? Which never happened and I see to what extent a brand like fresh-menu is really concerned about their customers and the kind of service they are providing.
First thing the next morning I call the Customer support to report the issue and spoke to the customer support agent who escalated the same to floor manager and I explained to him about the whole scenario and mentioned to him to take this as a priority and to keep me in the loop as to what their actions would be concerning the issue and how they would resolve it.
Let me tell you FRESH-MENU doesn’t care about their customers at all it took time for me to realize when they didn’t take the initiative to resolve the damage caused or got back to me until I happened to call them back again on Wednesday and I still see people trying to cut a sorry figure and an apology and not taking necessary steps to restore the damage caused. This is just not done this is not how a company like fresh-menu should treat their customers and the damage they have caused pertaining one’s religious beliefs and cultural practices.
The question that revolves around is:
Is this how fresh-menu treats their customers and addresses the issues they create?
Is this level of service being a world recognized brand?
I do not see any fresh menu employee I got in touch with taking the initiative or responsibility to restore the damage caused.
If this has happened to me I am sure there are a lot of customers like me who might have faced similar or different issues but didn’t raise or did and was not attended properly by the company.
Despite the busy schedule as a corporate employee I have invested so much time into this Bullshit FRESH-MENU has caused me and I do not see any corrective measures taken from FRESH-MENU which is a shame to the brand and the employees involved
Imagine though you consume meat and your meat diet is restricted to just chicken and mutton. What would you feel if someone served you dog meat or meat that you are not willing to eat but you ate cause you had no idea what that was?
I am writing to let people know the kind of service FRESH-MENU is providing and how serious they are about their customers and the issues they create for their customers. I will take legal action against them and I have all the necessary proof to do so.
Thank you for taking time out to read this post and please support the cause if you feel appropriate.