Anyone who orders pizza delivery on a regular basis probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Pizza Hut is having some financial troubles.
While fast food chains like Taco Bella and KFC are experiencing solid returns, Pizza Hut’s sales have fallen flat and in some cases taken a 10 to 12% nosedive.
PIzza Hut reps blame the lack of market has been slow to recover and that is the problem yet other fast food chains are seeing stronger sales.
Then Pizza Huts said they need to be “more aggressive and innovative”.
Well, I may not be an economist or a big fancy pizza CEO but I can tell you what Pizza Hut might really want to focus on and that’s the problem with customer service and getting orders right in the first place.
Last year I placed an order online from PizzaHut.com. A few hours later my order still had not arrived. When I called in they said they would have the store call me. An hour later my order still had not arrived so when the driver called to tell me she was lost and that was the problem (3 hours later mind you) I said don’t bother. I wanted my order 3 hours ago, I’ve already made myself a sandwich.
The driver cursed me out and then proceeded to call me and harass me five times over the next half hour.
When I finally got ahold of the person’s manager they didn’t apologize. They said that the person in question had worked for them awhile now and they had never had any complaints like that, am I sure it really happened?
Sometime later the driver showed up at my house and threw the food I had ordered at my front door. I didn’t realize this and the next morning I had a horribly smelly mess to clean up.
I waited 3 months – yes you heard me right – THREE MONTHS for the manager to return my call about the incident. After trying to reach the manager for that store about 10 times, over that 3 month period, I finally just gave up.
I didn’t order from Pizza Hut for about 7 months as a result of my experience.
Then I heard about their financial troubles and I decided to give them another try. I placed 5 orders over a period of about 4 weeks, each at different times of the day and on different days of the week.
Each time I ordered exactly the same thing which was 4 pizza rollers, 16 buffalo wings (bone-in) mild with blue cheese dressing and a 2 liter bottle of pepsi.
Order #1 – They delivered about 10 minutes late. Not bad but still it took an hour and 10 minutes from the time I originally placed my order to get it. They didn’t however deliver any sauce for the pizza rollers.
Order #2 – Late again – this time only about 5 minutes and my order was wrong. They gave me BBQ, bone-out wings instead of the traditional mild bone-in that I had ordered.
Order #3 – Late again, this time by about 30 minutes. This time they got my order wrong again. I was given medium or hot (not mild) wings and they forgot my pepsi.
Order #4 – Late again – this time by over 2 hours and a half hours. At about the 2 hour mark I called into the store and they said they already charged my card (over an hour ago) so they would have to credit me, which I said was fine. They then told me the food was already on it’s way so I could just have it free of charge. Nice huh? Well it arrived half an hour or so later, cold and trust me when I say, nothing tastes worse than cold pizza rollers. Oh and that credit? Never happened. I was charged the full amount.
Order #5 – I called in to complain exactly 8 days later about my credit that never happened. To make things easy on them I agreed to just order a duplicate meal from last week and get it for free (minus tip of course). I agree and 30 minutes later (only time they weren’t late), there is a knock on my door. The man gives me the food, forgets the sauce and demands I pay him nearly $18. Which is really odd considering the order should have been 22.46 – the cost of the previous order.
I tried to explain the situation to him but he didn’t seem to speak very good english and eventually he just gave up in frustration and left. And no I didn’t pay the $18 he was demanding I give him for the food. And again that order wasn’t even right. They forgot the sauce!
Another thing about Pizza Hut that really bothers me is that they charge you a surcharge for delivery. At first it was a $1. Then one day I noticed they doubled it to $2 and then $2.50 and now today I see they charge $3 for delivery. No that’s not the tip. You still have to tip your driver. It’s not for your food or your taxes. It’s an extra fee that tack on because they can.
They have no problem charging me an extra $3 per order for delivery, yet they don’t take ownership of their lateness or incorrect orders. If they can’t get that right, why should I have to pay that $3 for delivery?
In the end they messed up 5 out of 5 times. The orders are always late, they get the items wrong, forget your drinks and sauces.
If Pizza Hut wants to know what the heck is causing them to lose so much money, they might want to consider taking some classes in quality control.
August 7, 2015 Update:
I decided to give them one more try – but this time I thought I would keep it simple. I placed an order for only one thing, 16 pieces of traditional bone-in (mild) buffalo wings. With it I ordered blue-cheese dressing (dipping sauce).
They said my order would arrive in 1 hour and 7 minutes. It arrived a few minutes late. Surprise! But still a few minutes wasn’t bad. The wings arrived with ranch dressing, not blue cheese. LOL
But more than that, I actually started thinking.
They charged me $3 for delivery and then I had to tip $3 (sometimes I tip $4). So I had to pay $6 just for the privilege of getting my order delivered. Is it really worth $6 or $7 extra to have your food delivered, when you aren’t sure they are going to get it right in the first place?
That my friends is a big reason why Pizza Hut is in financial trouble.
For half the price I could just go to Taco Bell and still save myself the $6 to $7 delivery fee on top of the half price I saved on the food. Oh and by the way, I just heard that Taco Bell is starting to deliver!
