On May 17, Grubhub's promotion of offering free lunches to New Yorkers within a three-hour window quickly backfired and turned into a PR disaster.
The food delivery app gave a "free lunch" to New Yorkers who placed an order using the code "FREELUNCH" between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
The promotion was inspired by results from a survey indicating New Yorkers didn't eat lunch because they were too busy.
Participating customers basically received a $15 discount but were responsible for paying additional taxes, fees, and optional tips.
Hey New York, the best things in life are free\u2026 including lunch. Use code FREELUNCH for lunch on us 11AM-2PM. Let us know what you\u2019re ordering! #FreeForLunch\nhttps://grhb.me/freelunch\u00a0pic.twitter.com/QMb5XCafUd— Grubhub (@Grubhub) 1652796021
However, Grubhub was not prepared for the high demand of an average of 6,000 orders per minute during the promotion.
What Grubhub\u2019s free lunch campaign actually looks likepic.twitter.com/Jfw4u2dRvi— Amelia Pollard (@Amelia Pollard) 1652803836
Grubhub ran a promotion today offering New York City a $15 voucher for a free lunch from 11AM-2PM\n\nThey really underestimated how much New Yorkers love free food.pic.twitter.com/uzOeHfdmlY— Morning Brew \u2615\ufe0f (@Morning Brew \u2615\ufe0f) 1652812889
As exhausted service workers frantically tried to fill thousands of orders that eventually jammed the system, hangry New Yorkers griped about the ordeal that led to canceled orders.
@Grubhub Why promote free lunch and the code doesn\u2019t work #grubhub #freelunchpic.twitter.com/vN7eVbkOJ6— DJ BaddAzz (@DJ BaddAzz) 1652804071
Who could have possibly predicted that Grubhub offering free lunch to the entire city of New York during a specific 3-hour window would be a complete disaster?— Kevin J. Ryan (@Kevin J. Ryan) 1652807854
Today will go down as the day @Grubhub broke New York City— Steve O'Reilly (@Steve O'Reilly) 1652807332
Customer Ebenezer Ackon resorted to giving up after waiting an hour upon seeing that he was in 3,630th place in line to talk to the app's customer service.
He wound up leaving his apartment to get food from across the street.
Another customer named Blake said his order was canceled by the restaurant he ordered from because they were backed up with 200 orders in five minutes after the promo started.
The mayhem prompted Grubhub to issue the following statement:
"The overwhelming demand initially caused a temporary delay in our system, which was quickly fixed, and ultimately were able to fulfill more than 450,000 orders connected to the promotion."
But the crisis seemed to fall hardest on the delivery workers and understaffed restaurants who were desperately trying to keep up.
They ultimately had to cancel orders.
Nope, yesterday was a bad day for RESTAURANTS.— Lane \ud83c\udfa9 (@Lane \ud83c\udfa9) 1652923578
3min into @Grubhub free lunch promo, and the app is crashing. So much marketing and hype, just to fumble out the gate.— Lee-on Pedahzur (@Lee-on Pedahzur) 1652799886
currently working front of house at a restaurant in brooklyn and you guys big time messed up. we have over 30 cold orders not being picked up by drivers and our phones are off the hook with angry customers. absolutely fucking over the entire NYC service industry today— renny (@renny) 1652813820
As a restaurant owner in New York City, I can say that today was one of the worst days since the pandemic. Today I lost staff, I lost customers, and I lost a lot of food. Because @Grubhub decided to run a campaign without informing myself of what was going on.— Dana (@Dana) 1652844166
Shoutout grubhub for making every restaurant in the city of New York completely inoperable today— rich custodio (@rich custodio) 1652807176
Lilly, a worker at a Mexican restaurant in Harlem who is in charge of packing orders, told BuzzFeed she personally had to hand-deliver 11 meals by taking an Uber after the restaurant's driver couldn't keep up with the demand.
She texted the media outlet about the day she was having: "INSANITY."
Brandon Ching, who works at Greenberg’s Bagels in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, was also distressed.
He said:
“It got overwhelming. We were short-staffed today so it really added extra stress to my day."
Grubhub claimed they "gave advance notice to all restaurants in our network, which included multiple forms of communications across various platforms (e.g., email and in-platform)" and "increased driver incentives to help support demand."
But it seems the alleged advance warning did little to help with the mayhem. Or the messages were never received.
@Grubhub you didn\u2019t communicate with businesses. In fact you didn\u2019t even ask if we wanted to participate in this. Today you threatened our reputation and violated our boundaries. Pay us the money you stole from us today. #dontbuyongrubhub— Karla Martinez (@Karla Martinez) 1652846530
Order cancelled after a 2 hour wait, and now every restaurant has "paused" ordering. It was a nice thought, but it wasn't thought out.pic.twitter.com/3pWzscUWdu— Jonah Sahn (@Jonah Sahn) 1652805935
Believe me, from the restaurant perspective. Grubhub is the most mismanaged dumpster fire you've ever experienced.— \u300e\ud835\ude4e\ud835\ude40\ud835\ude4e\ud835\ude43\u300f (@\u300e\ud835\ude4e\ud835\ude40\ud835\ude4e\ud835\ude43\u300f) 1652924753
Stupid planning lead to lackluster results. Go figure— JM (@JM) 1652923736
Grubhub added:
"We [knew] 72% of New Yorkers call lunch the most important meal of the day, but the demand blew away all expectations."
"For context, we executed a similar promotion last year, which had a higher promotion value and our redemption rates for this promotion was 6X higher."
The company said their care team was working on crediting back $15 to customers who've had their orders canceled from the bungled promo.
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