The pizza giant, Domino's Pizza is the latest news maker in the world of Restaurant-tech. At the end of last month, they rolled out PIZZA TRACKER! No, it is not the newest game for Nintendo Wii; it is the latest tool that gives lazy people that absolutely can't wait to devour their molten disk of cheese, sauce, and bread the ability to follow their pizza on every step of its journey.
The service is now available in 3200 stores, and will be implemented in all stores across the country by June 30th. According to restaurantnewsresource.com "Once customers place an order, they can go to www.dominos.com and click on the Pizza Tracker icon. They will see a horizontal bar that lights up red as each step in the process is completed. Customers will see confirmation of their order being received by the store, when it's being prepared, when it's been placed in the oven, when it's been boxed and placed in the Domino's HeatWave(TM) bag, and finally, when it's on its way for delivery." The service gets even creepier as it gives customers the names of the people that take their phone order and deliver it.
I don't know about you, but I think this is a COMPLETELY unnecessary use of technology and a huge waste of money for Domino's. I thought that the entire reason for ordering a pizza to be delivered was that you were too busy to go pick it up or in the middle of something that could not be interrupted. But for someone to use this service, they have to be sitting at home on their computer obsessing as each step of the process takes place.
Call me stupid, cheap, or just motivated, but if I had the time to sit around and watch as Joe puts my order in the oven, and Paul gets into his car to deliver it, I'd rather save the 3 dollar tip and 2 dollar delivery charge and just go pick it up myself!
Hold on, I think my pizza is here...Wait! I know its here.
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3 comments:
Sounds interesting. Can fine dining establishment benefit from something like this?
Can they create some version of this ticker - perhaps for other reasons - to gain patrons?
I cover fine dining on the West Coast.
Anne S.
A pizza tracker? Jesus... it seems every company wants to come into the 21st century with a bang.
Next they'll have temp. gauges to tell you if its getting cold on the way there... I would not mind this service if it simply was an email sent to my blkberry saying that my pizza was 5 minutes away OR perhaps an email that would serve as proof if my pizza was 30 minutes late AND i would not have to argue with the guy and explain that it was LATE. Perhaps the delivery guy could receive an email saying that "IF THE PIZZA IS NOT AT CHAD'S HOUSE NOW, THEN DO NOT CHARGE HIM A CENT". That is where the service could be useful... in making the customer not have to battle the delivery guy for late pizzas and to inform the pizza guy he's late... the customer end does not need to use this service.
In regards to people tracking their pizza, its ridiculous. UPS does it so my 1000's of dollars worth of merch can be tracked, but my 5 for 5 deal does not need to do anything other than show up in 1/2 an hour.
cool post.
Hi Glenn,
I could only think of two reasons why Domino's could have created this (from my point of view) cool tool:
1. This way they can manage to avoid a significant amount of calls by customers calling for "where is my pizza already?!". This might not seem as a so important factor, but in real life can be able to reduce the pressure on customer support of Domino's by quite a lot. When customers are able to see where there pizza is, they are not going to call and ask the same question. The main purpose of the DHL,Fedex,etc. tracking systems are the same: relieve pressure on the company's customer support.
2: As they are the first one to use technology this way in the "pizza delivery industry", it might create a buzz marketing effect: people will talk about it, write about it in their blogs, go to their site to see "the world's first online pizza tracking system" :), and at the same time they might even order one or two pizzas.
By the way, great blog!
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