Product design question
How will you improve the worst customer experience post a successful order placement on Instacart?
- DoorDash
- Product design
- Medium
Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.
Start a mock interview on this question · Mock interview from a job description
What this question tests
Ability to identify and fix the worst moment in a post purchase experience using both product and operational levers.
How to approach it
- Identify the worst moment: likely an incorrect, missing, or substituted item discovered only after the order is delivered.
- Explain why this is the worst moment: it breaks trust right after a customer has already committed money and time, with no easy recourse.
- Prioritize resolution speed over prevention alone, since substitutions will always happen and the recovery experience matters most.
- Propose a proactive substitution confirmation step during shopping, letting customers approve or reject substitutes before checkout.
- Add a fast, low friction post delivery resolution flow: one tap refund or credit for flagged issues without a lengthy support ticket.
- Define success as reduction in support contact rate for order issues and faster resolution time for flagged problems.
What a strong answer includes
- Names a specific, realistic worst moment, unwanted substitutions, rather than a vague 'bad delivery experience'.
- Separates prevention (approve substitutes before checkout) from recovery (fast resolution after the fact), addressing both.
- Gives an illustrative number, e.g. assumes cutting resolution time from 24 hours to under 10 minutes for flagged issues.
- Ties the fix to trust, explaining why fast, low friction recovery matters more than avoiding all mistakes.
Common mistakes
- Giving a vague answer with no specific worst moment identified.
- Proposing only prevention with no recovery flow for when issues still happen.
- No metric to show the fix actually reduced customer frustration or support load.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you handle repeat offenders among shoppers making substitutions?
- What would you measure to know this worked?
- How would you balance instant refunds against fraud risk?
More product design questions
- How would you solve OpenTable's worst customer experience?DoorDash · Product design · Hard
- How would you design a loyalty program for DoorDash to increase customer retention?DoorDash · Product design · Medium
- Which app have you used for finding an apartment? How would you improve it?DoorDash · Product design · Easy
- How would you add a health option for DoorDash?DoorDash · Product design · Medium
- How would you improve DoorDash's post booking experience once the user has ordered their meal?DoorDash · Product design · Medium
- Design a post-checkout experience at Ticketmaster.DoorDash · Product design · Easy
More questions from DoorDash
Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 7: AI UX and human oversight: design for a system that is wrong sometimes
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop