Hayley Cakes and Cookies — Restaurant in Austin

To Whom It may Concern,

I'm writing to express my extreme disappointment with my experience with this company. I tried to amicably resolve my concerns with your VP of Operations, Mason. But to no avail, my request to get my cookie order corrected to my liking was met with a hard and fast "no". When my initial order was placed, I requested to see a sample design for my "extra cost" custom order. I was told by Mason that he'd have to search through 1,000's of pictures and that it would be impossible for him to find a sample of what I wanted. Nonetheless, he assured me that you all could do the design and that I'd be pleased. NOTE: At no time did he ask me to send him a picture of what I wanted to ensure that I be pleased with the end results. When I received an email that my order was being shipped, I took note that I would receive the cookies on Thursday, Feb, 7th. Feb 7th came and went; no cookie order. I emailed to inquire about the whereabouts of my cookies and I also requested to see a picture of what the cookies looked like. Once I received the picture, I immediately noticed that my son's name was spelled incorrectly. I also noticed the sub par work on the "boombox" cookies. In addition to correcting my son's name, I asked them to re-do the boombox cookie and I provided a picture of what I expected. I was told by Mason that it could be done, but they'd have to charge me more money to re-do the cookies. Mason made absolutely no attempts to work with me to correct the problem and despite me telling him that I was displeased with my order, HE DID NOT CARE AND PROCEEDED WITH SENDING THIS PATHETIC ORDER TO MY HOME.

It is abundantly clear that Hayley isn't the person that did these cookies. It looks like the work of a beginning intern; TOTALLY MISSHAPED AND SLOPPY! What I received is by no means the quality of what's advertised online and definitely not worth the $100 plus that I paid for these mediocre cookies. TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY: THE COOKIES ARRIVED TO MY HOME TODAY BROKEN AND CHIPPED. I've tried calling and no one is answering. And, I refuse to send an email as I'm certain that I'll be met with an answered phone by Mr. Rude otherwise known as Mason. What I'd ultimately like and feel that I deserve is an apology and an appropriately done order. And, if that can't be accommodated, I'd like my money back. You send the shipping label and I'll be more than glad to send the cookies back to you. I was sincerely hoping to begin a longstanding business relationship with this company, as I was extremely impressed with what I saw online. But, not only will that not be happening. I will absolutely voice my concerns and dissatisfaction with all of my Austin family and business partners...

Very disappointed in the customer service. I found some cookies on their Etsy shop that I liked and wanted to order for my boyfriend for Valentines Day. I called at 1:30 p.m. and spoke with Mason who said that they were still taking V-day orders for pick-up on the 14th and to place my order request online. I placed my order on their website within 5 minutes of speaking with him. I then get a call from Nancy less than 2 hours later, who was very polite, apologizing about them not being able to take my order. I explained that I had spoken to Mason and she called Mason on his cell to see if he would accept my order. He claimed he had spoken to me this morning and that I had just taken "too long" to order them, which was untrue. I was really looking forward to the adorable cookies you seem to offer, but I'll never know. I don't normally post negative reviews because I myself am a Customer Relations Manager and understand how disparaging & unreasonable people can be, but after reading other reviews of Mason's lack of customer service I'm inclined to plead with the owner to help make the necessary adjustments to you business and staffing model to better serve your (potential) customers.

Update: I see now that all this company is capable of is being condescending to their customers that are even remotely dissatisfied. I can understand wanting to defend your business against unwarranted claims, but as business owners it is also your responsibility to self-reflect on what can be done better. It doesn't seem like that is possible for this business. Setting your customers expectations up front will go a long way. So when a company tells me that they're still accepting orders, I would expect for them to honor an order placed 5 minutes later, even if they are now at capacity. TBH, considering your popularity, I was surprised (and excited!) when you told me you WERE still accepting orders for Valentines 6 days away. I was also in the restaurant business for 5 years so I can understand the concept of being busy and past capacity and having to draw a line. Unfortunately, you're alienating customers with the wrong customer relations policies...

please note the response from Hayley's below which does a perfect job of highlighting how out of touch they are with customers* - Despite the palatable quality of the cookies we sampled, they ultimately fell short of our event's requirements—a fundamental expectation one would presume a bakery specializing in custom orders could fulfill. This sentiment was echoed in my communication with my credit card company, highlighting not just a personal disappointment but a recurring theme discernible in numerous reviews of your establishment. It seems I am far from alone in encountering this disparity between the service promised and that which is delivered. It's disconcerting to observe a business so seemingly detached from its clientele's needs, and I wish you luck as you navigate the ensuing repercussions, including chargebacks, from customers disillusioned by your inability to meet the standards you profess to uphold.

I ordered custom cookies for my sisters bachelorette party. There’s opportunity to add notes about what changes you want to the cookies and I put clear directions on small tweaks when I placed the order 2 months beforehand. Upon receiving the cookies, the directions were disregarded. When I reached out to them, they said there was fine print saying you couldn’t make any changes and they offered me to refund me for the few cookies that we were dissatisfied with. I asked if they could instead just make us the cookies we requested or help us place an additional rush order and they were not willing to work with us on that. Had to spend additional money to get cookies elsewhere rush shipped so that we had enough for the event. In fairness, the cookies that came out well did look nice and taste good! However, the team should have called and let us know they weren’t able to make the modifications especially since we ordered well in advance. They left us in a bad spot scrambling for the special day since we had an insufficient number of cookies to use...