Home Delivery

I ordered lunch from Hong Kong yesterday. Their takeaway menu is identical to their normal service menu. For home delivery, they charge an additional service charge of Rs. 20. They deliver the food not to the room but to the main gate of the institute. So, any customer who avails of their home delivery service is informed by the delivery person upon his arrival and is then asked to collect the food from the gate.

I called Hong Kong around 1 o'clock in the afternoon and placed my order. The person I spoke to was very cordial. He noted my order patiently and repeated it at the end to make sure it was exactly what I wanted. He noted down my name and phone number which would act as a reference for all future communication. Around 1:20, I received a call from the delivery person that the food had arrived. I picked up my wallet and just as I was leaving the room, a group-mate from my MRS group stopped me. He wanted to know what we were doing about a MRS submission which was due in a week's time. I went to his room to discuss the MRS project details with the other group members completely forgetting the fact that the Hong Kong delivery person was waiting for me. 20 minutes into the discussion, I received a call from him again. It was then it suddenly struck me that I had told him that I was on my way. I rushed out of the room and reached the gate as fast as I could. Upon reaching the gate, I saw that the delivery person was standing next to his scooter. It was a rather hot and humid day and the delivery person was visibly tired and exhausted. I went up to him and apologized for having made him wait for 20 minutes in the sun. He smiled at me and said "No problem, sir." His disarming smile and the way he said what he said made me feel really guilty about what I had done. The bill had amounted to a total of Rs. 270 inclusive of the Rs. 20 service charge. I paid him Rs. 300 for the food. The delivery person reached into his wallet to return the balance. I don't know whether it was the guilt of having made him wait for so long or something else, but I asked him to keep the balance with him. On a subconscious level, I probably thought I could buy-back the guilt of having made him wait.

SERVICE RATINGS

a) Reliability: The home delivery service is very reliable

b) Assurance: The person who took my order asssured me that the food would be delivered on time.

c) Tangibles: The phone at Hong Kong was picked up immediately. The scooter used for delivery did not have a box to carry the food. The delivery person kept the food packet between his legs on the floor of the scooter.

d) Empathy: The delivery person displayed a high degree of empathy.

e) Responsiveness: The entire home delivery process was very responsive.