I preorder my food every night, BUT, tonight I needed to preorder one item on the app then order more items while at the store.
So, it’s a little after 1am and I pull into the drive through, speak to my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE THING to speak to….a robot…. (Sarcasm intended) I say verbatim, “place an order and pick up an order.”
The robot can, as observed in person, that it cannot process two things at once. It proceeded to have me do the online order pickup first, which was fine, but, afterwards it just cut off and said, “see you at the window…” so I attempt to get ANY employee’s attention by talking into the speaker, but to no avail, no answer, just crickets…
I thought, ok, ig they don’t listen to it, I’ll just call. So I call the location and first attempt I went to voicemail, now it’s time for the second attempt. THE PHONE WAS ANSWERED, BUT, this is where the happiness ends…I heard the phone answer, waited a second to hear the employee talk, but nothing, so I asked, “hello?” And nothing, so again, “hello?!” (This time a tad bit louder, but not in a demeaning or rude tone, solely a little louder in case they didn’t hear me) after this repeated “hello,” the next thing I hear is a “click,” they hung up on me…
So I decide to speak with someone at the window. Upon reaching the window I was greeted, as well as treated professionally, on this I have zero issues. But, I was informed that I would have to go back through the line in order to get a second order. This typically would not be any issue, that is IF I had a he time, which I did not, as it would make me late getting back to work.
Now, on one hand, u do understand the reason for having to wait for others to get their food, but when it is due to the system only taking one order at a time because “a.i.” (basically a robot that everyone thinks is SO smart and can take the place of a human, who can ACTUALLY think and has a decision making ability because they are HUMAN), in my opinion this would make the fault fall directly on the establishment’s shoulders, not on the customer’s.
So, should any person who has the ability to make changes within the Taco Bell system be reading this…what it boils down to is, PLEASE TAKE AWAY THE ROBOT THAT DOES NOT HAVE THE ABILITY OF BEING ABLE TO THINK LIKE A HUMAN, because A) if I wanted to talk to a robot (and I can assure you that I do NOT, in ANY situation) I would call any of the thousands of retailers who make it impossible for you to speak with a human, because some people actually ENJOY human interaction from time to time, and B) if you are in the store during operational hours, ANSWER THE PHONE! That last bit was EXTREMELY unprofessional and disrespectful. No matter the circumstances, I always approach all employees with a positive and happy attitude, until they disrespect me, which is VERY few and far between, because it honestly makes my day to be nice to people because you never know what the person you are talking to has going on that may be negative, my goal in every interaction is to make the other person smile, because you never know if that was the only smile that they were able to have the entire day.