Nov 17 2007
Pizza Hut vs Dominos – it’s a matter of customer service
When you’re onto a good thing, sometimes you should stick to it.
Usually, we have pizza about once a fortnight and we order from the local Pizza Hut franchise. For some reason last time we tried Dominos (and I think I saw a sign up since then about it being under new management).
When we order from Pizza Hut (and it’s almost always on a Friday night) they will quote a delivery time that’s generally around 30-40 minutes, and the order is generally placed around 6.30 pm.
So last time, we ordered from Dominos via their website at it’s around 6.40 pm. Around 7.20pm we check on the order via phone (confirm everything is ok, you know). “Yes, your order has been received, it should be there any minute”.
Twenty minutes later (7.40 pm), still no pizza. We ring again. “Your order has been dispatched, it will be there shortly”.
The pizza finally shows at just after 8.00 pm. Accompanied by an apologetic delivery driver, saying that the garlic bread was not included so he had to give us a refund of $5. Actually, it was Chicken Wings – but ok, thanks for the gesture.
So you give them the benefit of the doubt.
Tonight, we tried again. The log:
6.50 pm – via phone this time “we’d like to order one of your specials – 2 large pizzas (toppings specified), 1.25L soft drink and 4 pack of jumbo chicken wings – discount coupon P884 (which states from $27.95 delivered). We add a garlic bread for Miss 4, who loves it @ $2.50) – total $30.45. We are quoted an hour’s delivery. Hmmm, ok.
8.20 pm – we ring to follow up. “I’m sorry, we had that marked for pick up, but we’ll make up some new pizzas and have them to you in 20 minutes – for $20” (note $10.45 discount).
9.05 pm – 2 hours and 15 minutes after the order, the pizza arrives – minus the 1.25 litre drink, of course! We coughed up the $20 with a “don’t worry about it mate” to the delivery guy (who was minus a tip – come on you can’t tip that service, even if it wasn’t the kid’s fault), while laughing at the irony that they STILL stuffed up the order.
The pizzas were nice, albeit too tiny to be called “large”. The chicken wings were not wings, but nuggets – tasty anyway.
9.25 pm – credit where credit’s due! The phone rings and it’s Dominos. “Sorry you didn’t get your drink. Don’t worry – next time you order, the drink is on us”. The response “don’t worry about it mate” – knowing full well there won’t be a next time.
You know, in all the years we’ve been ordering from Pizza Hut, sure they’ve stuffed up occasionally. The main offense has been when we’ve ordered pizza for one of the kids who DOES NOT EAT tomato, of any kind, so we get it minus the tomato base. But they’ve always been very good, delivering a fresh pizza out ASAP (minus tomato).
And there was one time when the poor distraught delivery guy was really late because of roadworks in the area cutting off a direct route (for another delivery) and meaning an exceptionally long detour. In this instance – the next order was on them, free of charge. And knowing the area and the detour you could excuse the mistake.
The point is, when it comes to customer service, if you stuff up – compensate, and compensate adequately. But if you’re going to stuff up again, and again – don’t make a token gesture, because it’s going to be way too late for a token.
15 Responses to “Pizza Hut vs Dominos – it’s a matter of customer service”
That’s really bad isn’t it, especially when you have young kids waiting for food. I didn’t think Pizza Hut was around anymore. I haven’t seen one in Adelaide for ages.
Funny you mention this, we have had a similar problem with the 2.
We have been using Pizza Hut, we order online and pick up. But every single time we order they stuff it up. DH gets a Hawaiian with extra garlic, I press the garlic twice in the online order but he never gets it. We had rang up after an order and complained and they said it’s fine, we’ll make a note and it should be fine from now on…but it wasn’t. The last time we ordered he went in and abused them..so they thought they would be smart when they had to remake and smothered it in garlic, you could hardly see the pizza for the garlic.
So this week we tried out Dominos..and it sucked. So I guess we go back to arguing with Pizza Hut.
Where I used to live, there only was a Dominos, and there customer service was always fantastic.
Here we have both Pizza Hut and a Dominos, we decided to give PH a try. Mum always has a Supreme with no olives, but they put olives on the pizza. But to give us a refund/new pizza they’d have to come up and actually see the olives on the pizza, never went there again.
We only have Dominos here, and never had a drama. Bad customer service should always be punished though – there’s no excuse.
I think you really should tell them exactly how you feel ..eg. you should have added the dont worry about it Mate cos we wont be coming back and we will be emailing the franchise headquarters with a complaint.
Often the management doesnt know about the mistakes etc. and as the old saying goes – If you like us please tell your friends, if you dont please tell us.
I am a pizza ordering expert (or should be for the amount of times i do it) and have found without a doubt that pizza hut is better than dominos for customer service 100% of the time.
My most recent experience with the dominos “customer service” was calling up to order and having an argument with the person taking my order over the price. Since i have a $4.95 coupon and i am ordering $5 of extras (the prices which he agreed with) then the price can not possibly be $10.95 and i tried to explain that $4.95 + $5 can only ever be $9.95. The price I pay for my sanity is considerably more.
As for delivery. I don’t bother. I collect as i know that i am going to get my pizza during the same meal period that i ordered. For this reason i do prefer dominos now that online ordering is in my area as i can see when my pizza hits the oven and time my drive accordingly.
Oh and on a side note, it is true that half the time i can’t get my dog to respond when his name is called but he does respond to the word pizza as he thinks he is getting a ride in the car to go collect it.
I think customer service generally has gone down. Luckily my expectations aren’t all that high any more.
Might be time to make the swap from Pizza to Indian or something…
Ok I hate to say this because I know how busy you are, but we – my parents, the other half and I – have started making our own pizzas instead of ordering and now I wouldn’t order pizza again. 😉 It’s not take away I know, but it tastes so much better. I’ve gone right off take away pizza – it was served to me at my parents a while ago and we all agreed we’d rather make our own now.
To make it faster and almost as easy as ordering take away we use the Bazaar pizza bases which are fairly cheap – and can be frozen. You can buy pizza sauce in a ready to squirt on bottle (we use Ardmona pizza sauce). You can get capsicum in a little tin, ready to go on, if you don’t want to cut up fresh capsicum and cook it. Tinned pineapple and tinned champignon mushrooms are easy too, if you don’t want to use fresh. Mozzarella is available shredded. You can get pizza salami in a packet. Pitted olives are in a jar in the fridge.
The only things we cut up fresh are ham, feta cheese, and Kabana. It takes us maybe 10 minutes to create the pizza goodness, then we put them in the microwave convection oven for 20-30 minutes, depending how crispy we feel like eating it. We had it just last night. It was so delicious!
Then again, you can choose to make a much more simple pizza. I did one with feta cheese, fresh sliced tomatoes and olives. It was brilliant because the feta did that thing your other half mentioned – it went all creamy and gorgeous. 😉
Then I did one with cream cheese as a base rather than the tomato base, I put a little tomato on top of that, with fresh mushrooms and salami.
My parents say I always put too much topping on, but I never have liked the topping rationing that went on with pizza places. And it’s my pizza, so they should just shut up. 😉 I’m not making them eat it!
Hmm, I’m getting hungry again now!
Snoskred
@ Jen – the little kids aren’t really into pizza, so they’re usually fed. But anyone who’s had experience with a teenage boy will know that a ravenous teen is NOT pleasant!
@ Leigh – I don’t know why they have to take it so personally? I don’t think expecting to get what you ask for, is asking for too much. As frustrating as it is though, I think the way the customer handles the complaint affects the resolution. It’s hard for some people to be assertive without crossing the line to abusive.
My son recounted a story about one of his mates who works at McDs. Someone had asked for extra pickles and didn’t get them, complained loudly, and the next thing he had 12 pickles (spread out over all the levels). He took it back and complained to the manager – who apparently went out the back, because he couldn’t control his laughter. Customer threw down the hamburger and left in disgust.
@ Kin – it probably depends on the owner of the local franchise, so would vary widely from branch to branch.
@ Jass – that’s a fair enough comment. Sometimes it’s just not worth fighting…
@ Greg – you’re probably right about picking up vs delivery. What I hate is when you get a drive through order from fast food joint & then get home to discover something missing. Do you turn around and spend another 20 minutes for the sake of it, share remaining food, or quickly learn to check the order before you leave? Not always easy when you’ve got a big order.
@ Tiffany – 3 kids already think pizza is too exotic, wouldn’t like my chances with Indian 😉
@ Snoskred – actually I used to make my own pizza all the time (from the dough up). You’re right that nothing beats them. Just requires a lot of forethought and time. I should look at the pre-made base option though – thanks.
Hi Meg,
I’ve eaten a lot of home delivered pizza over the years and I’d have to say that the average quality of service has been pretty terrible and is getting worse. I’d much rather make my own (bases from scratch using the breadmaker to mix the dough is best – when living alone, I make a couple and it does me for eat-on-the-run food for the week).
I share your pain – one of my pet peeves is when the delivery person swings the bag around so that all the topping ends up on one end of the box – I used to check and send them back if they were totally trashed this way (and to their credit, Pizza Hut did get better where I lived then through complaints from my neighbours/local friends and self this way).
Thinking about it, I am hungry now
Best regards, Andrew
I love pizza but the delivery ones never arrive hot enough for me (living in the UK I guess does mean it’s not always warm). But even in the summer I like them hot, hot, hot.
Andrew – funny I used to love left over home made pizza cold, but wouldn’t dream of doing that with the bought stuff yuck.
I think those little tripod gizmos they came out with helped with the pizza sticking to the top of the box thing – haven’t had that problem for a long time.
Hope you fed yourself 😀
Faz the Cat – that can be an issue here too, but the insulated bags do an ok job most of the time, at least they don’t have to worry about people getting cheese burns…
I’ve had dodgy experiences with both companies – but I would prefer Pizza Haven OR Pizza Hut in any case. It’s a little more expensive, but the service and food is worth it!
Response to:
# Leigh on 17 Nov 2007 at 9:21 am
Maybe if you hadn’t gone into Pizza Hut and “abused them” they wouldn’t have smothered the pizza in Garlic?! Remember it is human beings that make your Pizzas, and we are not infallible and are therefore subject to human error… sometimes people forget that and when you are trying to get a rush of 95 orders that have come in within the last 30-45mins sent out, hot and on time, things like customers asking for extra garlic or the driver forgetting the juice sometimes slip your mind during the rush? Its not as easy as you might think…Believe me i know having worked for Pizza Hut UK for more than three years,we try our best, well at least in my shop, but for some customers it just isn’t good enough! A bit of courtesy and understanding always goes a long way!! We accept that we make mistakes and are more than happy to rectify the situation and compensate you for the poor service and for your negative experience but, theres no need to for customers to come back in shouting, swearing etc… you just make an arse of yourself onfront of other customers and the staff. Like Meg said be assertive, tell us what the issue is and how we can resolve it for you but one thing i cannot stand is the lack of respect people have for someone who works for a fast food company…it is still a human being you are speaking to… they are just doing their job…how hard is it to say please and thank you?! :S
In response to Bryce:
The reason you would have been asked for your Pizza back is that unfortunately there are people who decide to ‘chance’ it and impurposely make a mistake whilst ordering or just ‘pretend’ something is wrong with their order and want a free pizza next time… and unfortunately it is an increasing minority! but unfortunately as trusting as we would love to be, our franchisees wouldnt have it! Don’t be offended by it though, if you decide to return to Pizza Hut stress to the team member that you do not want olives and ensure the order is read back to you to confirm it is correct!
and finally a response to Jass:
Please do tell your local Hut how you feel, but whats the need to go out of your way to tell us that you won’t be back and that you are emailing Head Office with a complaint? If you tell someone that you won’t be coming back to their restaurant, shop or business, theres a high chance that they will feel like there is no point in trying to resolve your situation as it is apparent they have lost the customer before they even attempt to.
Moral of my essay: ofcourse complain when its not right or up to scratch but be civil about it!
to all,
i totally agree with what everyone has had to say in reguards to the service with both pizza hut and domino’s. As someone who is part of the management team for a pizza hut store, i do not accept it when staff make pizzas incorrect, occasionally one slips past me and when it is brought to my attention i am always more than happy to fix the problem asap and to the customers satisfaction.
unfortunately, we are all human and there are the occasional mistakes, and i do agree that at times the customer service for pizza hut could use a bomb under it. However, i do know for a fact that Pizza hut have made adjustments to the way that they give customer service to you the customer, by not only confirming your order but also showing you the pizzas to ensure you are happy with them.
I hope that you all do continue your patronage to pizza hut, and we would all love to continue to give you 100% satisfaction