Repeated Operational Failures and the Worst Customer Service Experience I Have Encountered
My experience with the Smiles UAE / Smiles Market application has been, without exaggeration, the worst customer service and grocery delivery experience I have encountered in the UAE.
This review is based on repeated incidents over time, not a single isolated case. Unfortunately, almost every order I placed through the application included unavailable items that were shown as available on the app, delayed deliveries, poor communication, and extremely unprofessional customer support interactions.
The latest incident took place when I placed an order at 11:50 AM through Smiles Market. The application provided a delivery window between 3:00 PM and 6:00 PM. At 2:20 PM, I contacted customer support simply to understand the expected delivery time.
The support agent, Ahmed Alkady, demonstrated extremely poor customer service standards from the beginning of the conversation. There was no empathy, no ownership, and no attempt to assist professionally. Instead of helping, he repeatedly asked whether I wanted to cancel the order within the first few minutes of the conversation.
When I requested escalation to a manager, I was informed that a manager would contact me within “30 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes maximum.” Due to the lack of confidence in the information being provided, I requested to remain connected on the chat until escalation was completed. I also requested two formal complaints to be raised:
1. Failure to provide accurate delivery timing.
2. Complaint against the customer service representative.
The interaction then became increasingly unprofessional, including rude communication style and inappropriate use of exclamation marks during the conversation.
After waiting for more than one hour without receiving any callback, I was transferred to another agent named Ahmed A. He informed me that the actual SOP/SLA for manager callbacks is 24 hours, directly contradicting the information provided by the previous representative. When questioned regarding this contradiction, he admitted that the first agent was “confused” despite supposedly being aware of the correct procedures.
I eventually received my order at 5:46 PM after spending hours following up with customer support. What is even more concerning is that this review is being written more than 60 hours after the incident, and no manager has contacted me despite repeated escalation requests and promises made by the support team.
As someone with more than 12 years of professional experience in customer support, learning and development, operational excellence, and service quality, I can confidently say this is among the weakest customer service operations I have ever encountered globally.
The issues appear systemic rather than individual:
• Lack of accountability and ownership.
• Failure to follow basic customer service principles.
• Inconsistent and misleading information provided to customers.
• Absence of proper escalation management.
• Long unattended chats without apology or acknowledgment.
• Poor communication etiquette.
• No visible quality assurance standards.
• No indication of effective supervision, training, or operational governance.
The overall experience reflects serious operational and customer service deficiencies that require immediate review and corrective action.
I strongly hope the management team and relevant UAE consumer protection authorities take these concerns seriously to ensure customers receive the level of professionalism, transparency, and respect expected from a major UAE service platform.
10 May 2026
Unprompted review