I’m not entirely sure, since I haven’t actually worked for a neighborhood pizza place, but I am assuming that a regular delivery order of $60, probably isn’t all that common. In particular an order that is placed without coupons or incentives. In fact, I’m guessing that as delivery orders go, $60 for a local pizza joint would be nice to get even if it wasn’t so regular.
And here is how that pizza place lost any and all potential future business from me and possibly may lose more business because in today’s day and age, unhappy customers will at the drop of a hat, blog about such things and visit Yelp, etc.
There is a regular get together over at my house of several people and sometimes one of us will run out for burritos or something similar. Sometimes we hop into a couple of cars and drive somewhere nearby and sometimes we call and get delivery. Pizza is often towards the top of the list of delivery. It had been a while since we had ordered pizza. The reason is that the local pizza place we liked had changed hands and the pizza had gone downhill. Twice we ordered and once the pizza was so soggy, we couldn’t actually get it out of the box without scraping the top and bottom of the pizza box. The next time we were pretty clear in explaining that we didn’t want a repeat of our previous situation and the pizza arrived dry and as hard as a rock. A discussion with the “manager” brought forth the statement “Everyone loves our pizza. You are the only one who has problems.”
As fate would have it, another neighborhood pizza place had recently delivered us a menu. We looked at the menu and was only slightly put off by the fact that their coupons required you to buy an additional $8 worth of toppings on a pizza to save $2, but their overall menu prices seemed okay and what pleased us even more was the wide assortment of other items available, including eggplant parmesan and lasagna – even a vegetarian lasagna.
I called to place the order and while giving the order, one of our group said “Oh the eggplant parmesan comes with spaghetti.” I asked if she might prefer some vegetables instead. She smiled and after giving the order, I asked the person on the phone if the eggplant could have some veggies instead of the spaghetti. He said it would be $3.99 extra. I said “No, not in addition to the pasta, instead of it.” A rather gruff response of “No substitutions, $3.99 if you want steamed vegetables instead.” The unusual thing was that a side order of spaghetti was $4.99.
I won’t get into the rest of the conversation. We actually ordered the food, because we were hungry and didn’t want to start at ground zero at this point. We didn’t order the $3.99 side of veggies though. Whether the food was any good or not, is pretty much moot at this point, because I will not order from them again. I will also tell my many friends and acquaintances this story and by doing so, may also cause them to lose some potential business.
I forgot to mention that when I asked to speak to the manager or owner, the person I spoke to said “speaking”. The minimal damage was them losing a $60 delivery order once a month, or approximately $720 worth of business per year. Combine that with my big mouth and one can only guess at how this short sighted and foolish move on their part may have wound up costing thousands. The food was okay, perhaps slightly better than okay. If it was phenomenal or a bargain, one might simply chalk up the attitude, such as with Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi. This wasn’t the case.
This business spends tons of money sending out flyers and advertising. They probably have no idea how high their client acquisition costs are. They certainly seem to not be motivated by customer service or are willing to do much of anything to retain a customer. And remember, this order was sans coupon or enticement.
And all for less than 50 cents worth of veggies.
No related posts.
