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Tracking Your Domino’s Pizza
Posted by Becky Carroll on June 23, 2008
Maybe it’s because I am a geek at heart (I do have a degree in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and worked for NASA during my college summers – really!). Maybe it’s because I was hungry. Either way, I really liked the Domino’s Pizza Tracker tool I used the other day (and my kids liked the pizza, so it all worked out).
It was fairly simple. I went online to order my pizza (like I have done many times for another pizza company, where I have had mixed results). Ordering was easy, as it should be. When I completed paying for my order, the site took me to the screen you saw above and started tracking my pizza order. Jeff was the lucky guy to prep, make, and bake my pizza. The site even asked me how Jeff was as my “delivery expert”. I had a lot of fun watching the progress, which was pretty rapid (and it was a Saturday night, too!).
Questions:
Does someone at Domino’s actually sit there and enter this info, or is is all automated? Does it assume how long it takes to make a pizza? Does Jeff hit a “done” button as he completes each phase so it will update? Inquiring minds want to know, so if any one has an idea of how the technology works, please share. 🙂
Customers Rock! Implications
It is always good to set customer expectations. The more customers can stay in the loop, the less there will be complaints or criticisms. For my pizza order, this all worked very nicely, and within 10 minutes of the “your pizza just left the building” update, the doorbell rang (yes, it was the pizza). I was impressed.
However, I have read other posts that share frustration that the pizza was very late after it “went out for delivery”. Apparently, Domino’s doesn’t have a good way to track that part of the process. A flat tire, traffic, or a lot of other pizzas to deliver can mar the experience. This is not all that different from what FedEx or UPS does with their package tracking. Once the package is on the truck for delivery, it is anyone’s guess as to when it will arrive. If this part of the experience can be fixed (can anyone say GPS?), then we would have a real winner!
How can you help set your customers’ expectations? Are they kept in the dark about their purchase or usage experience? Talk to your customers, find out which part of your process they find difficult or frustrating, then see what you can do to fix it. Domino’s did. I am looking forward to ordering my next pizza from them.
Has anyone else experienced this? What did you think – cool, or a gimmick?
Customers Rock! 
Eric Brown said
Becky, Good Evening, I haven’t tried this Domino’s feature but it sounds pretty cool. We will be forwarding this out to our residents for feedback; they will really resonate with this and find value in, and give us something to talk about with them, Thank You! If Dominos had or has a strong Evangelists Community, someone in that Community could likely fix, create or otherwise figure out some of the shortfalls. A piece of the Customer Experience we sometimes miss is Entertainment. It also seems that when you come up with something that is innovative, but maybe don’t fully have it right, you can look inward to your customer base for solutions, assuming you are genuine. Many of our “problems” have been fixed by our Resident Base, either through just listening to them, utilizing their technical skills or hiring them as consultants, but the point here is it is very effective and efficient, your customer/resident already knows you/your brand the best, and when you can lead them to a new innovation, they are more than willing to help out. Pretty cool stuff
James Shields said
I’m a geek, too. But, I’d highly recommend against publicly using GPS tracking for vehicles carrying cash. Or, at least, don’t show the driver’s position.
Maybe a display like “Your delivery expert has two deliveries before you.” When it’s finally your turn you see “Your delivery expect is 3.6 miles from you.”
On a side note: “delivery expert” … oh my.
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