Persistent issues with in-store Wifi causing customer chat delays/errors
Last night was immensely frustrating and I want to explain a technical issue I've had more than once. Some store locations for me have inconsistent or partial cell phone service coverage, so I have Wifi details for them saved, but the entire chain of stores under this brand all share the same Wifi settings/password.
Last night I had a customer who was NOT receiving any of the messages I was sending them through customer chat. And in batches previous I had some issues with ingoing and outgoing messages having 5 to 10 minute delays between sending and receiving.
Last night's customer had ordered a deli counter item, but I arrived after the deli counter had closed for the day. I messaged them about this issue, and that there were no pre-cut case alternatives for it. For the next 10 minutes of the shop they were complaining about the refund on the deli item via chat, and trying to re-add it to the order, and requesting a different deli counter item. They also were accusing me of ignoring them and getting really irate. I contacted support to have them add a note to the batch about the technical issue just in case the customer rates me poorly after delivery, and they confirmed that on their end they can't see very many of my outgoing messages. I was also getting some app errors in regards to trying to substitute the deli item with a pre-packaged bologna similar to what the customer was saying they wanted in their messages.
It eventually occurred to me to try disabling Wifi on my phone to see if the store's firewall was the cause, and that clear up the messaging delay, but not the app errors for substitution. But that second issue might be somewhat caused by the customer fighting the refund so many times.
I also had the usual secondary issue during checkout where the payment card was declined and support was arguing with me about what the cause was and was insisting on me adjusting the expected weight of the bananas by 0.05lb, which was idiotic and every other time I've called about a payment processing issue they would just default to adding a dollar and having me process it again.
tl;dr In my experience in-store Wifi for this one grocery store chain is causing issues for the instacart app, and I'm going to be deleting the saved settings for any chains that I'm having recurring issues with.