Email and Pizza Don’t Mix

Here’s the scene: You’re sitting at your computer hard at work. A Papa John’s Pizza ad pops up on your screen and you think, Yeah, pizza. That sounds good (when does pizza NOT sound good?).

photo by flickr user thepizzareview

Being the resourceful type,  you go to Papa John’s website to peruse the menu. And lo and behold, you discover an email order form. What will they think of next, you wonder?

So you order a pizza. Like Lauren McKay, of the DestinationCRM blog did.

I placed my order online. I got an email soon thereafter quoting my time as 30-40 minutes. Well, an hour passed. No pizza. So I called the local branch to ask about the delivery status. Yikes. The man who answered the phone shouted – and I mean really shouted — at me, “It takes an hour – it’s coming!!!” … As I was submitting feedback about the rude service, my pizza arrived. “Um, why’d you order online?” the delivery woman asked me, looking at me as if I had three alien heads.

Another example from the same post involved a botched emailed sandwich order, in which the delivery person said:

They almost didn’t see my order at all. They aren’t used to people ordering online.

If you offer a service, you really should be ready to provide it, however infrequently. The problem is that if you don’t have high demand for the service, it becomes harder to provide it proficiently.

The solution? Hey, I’m just here to write about email failures…

But I can come up with two simple answers:

• Only offer services by email that you are prepared to support.
• Don’t  treat your customers like dopes for ordering online
  • And don’t tell them that nobody else does it!