Papa John's Customer Service: A response (but not for me in Glendale, WI)

Becky Carroll wrote a great response to my Papa John's Valentine's Day love story, where she shares a terrible Internet experience she had, as well as some excellent tips for how to make the Papa John's experience better. In the comments on Becky's article, Lynn Rodgers shares that she had the same experience:

"I had the exact same experience. I went into the store with a coupon that said “Buy 1 large, get a medium free”. It specifically said “Internet Only” on it. The girl at the counter said, “We can’t take that; it’s internet only”. I said, “Then could someone please show me HOW TO USE THE COUPON on the internet. There is not promotional code on it.” She said she didn’t know. I made her call over the manager. He didn’t know. He said, “You just log on and use it” very condescendingly. I said that there had to be a promo code to input or it wouldn’t work, and he said he didn’t know anything about it. They refused to honor the coupon even though I was standing there with it. I emailed the headquarters and gave specifics of the problem. No answer to my question, and that was over a month ago."

Hmm, that's not very good customer service. So what does the local Papa John's do about this? The local manager responded in the comments, and for that, I say WELL DONE Judy Nichols, as I'm still waiting to hear from my local store, with the following:

"I am your local Papa John’s franchise owner. Thanks for the forward. Sorry the online ordering experience wasn’t all you had hoped for. There are a myriad of reasons for why we (Papa John’s) are less than you would want when ordering online. Primarily I would point to the newness of the technology. One of the best things about online is we are the first to fully provide the service, One of the worst things about online is we are the first to fully provide the service. Very few of us operationally order a pizza online, we get pizza at work. This also prevents us from being fully versed with the technology. It currently is 7.3% of my customer base, not the biggest area of demand.

As far as the internet goes, I am almost a total noob. I use email and play a game online with my daughter and that is it. I have been to the online ordering area once but after nearly 30 years in this business, the last thing I want brought to my house is a pizza. Needless to say, I did not complete an order. Same for most of my team.

Online is a great tool for us however because as many of you have noted, most of our team is young 1st & 2nd jobbers. They are far from great at providing pure customer service. As consumers, you want it that way because everyone wants a discount and is unwilling to pay $30 for a pizza so that I can hire and pay professional ordertakers. That is simply a fact of the business model.

I often hear “training” as the answer to all ills as well. Again, without higher prices, I can not make the investment in teaching every team member every fact they need to be proficient before they hit the floor. They must learn from you as they go because they must be paid for classroom training which is non-productive. The consumer does not want to pay for that training with higher prices. It is all I can do to teach them the bare minimum needed to function as adults in the workplace. They certainly do not come to me with that knowledge. You all may have 1 or 2 teenagers. I have 65. They look to me for guidance every bit as much as they look to you and often my 60+ hour work week is spent on developing them as people as well as employees.

As far as the coupon not having the online code, I looked at all of my ads out right now and they all say under the word FREE “enter the coupon code freemedium”. If your coupon does not have that on there, I apologize. I would need to know more about where you got your coupon to understand why the code wasn’t listed. The main reason I have different specials and coupons instore compared to online is that I recognize the consumer is doing some of our work by going online and so I offer lower priced specials there to share the cost savings of not paying a team member to take that order.

As I noted, this is all still quite new to us and we are in a learning curve as to what is consumer friendly and what is not. We are still much “Better” I believe than our competition online and with your help and feedback, we should continue to stay that way."

Bravo to Judy for responding. I wish my Papa John's would contact me. It'll be a full month tomorrow.

To Judy's points:

I will GLADLY pay $2 more for a non-chain pizza place to make my pizza experience better, and in fact, most local places are NOT more expensive, they are equal or less expensive, with better quality, and they are willing to do what it takes to get your order right.

Judy mentions that customers are "unwilling to pay $30 for a pizza."

Does it cost $30 to make a pizza correctly? I don't think so.

Let me tell you about a company who does it right

from the archives of Pizza Shuttle

My favorite local pizza place is Pizza Shuttle (hey there Mark & Louie and all the rest of the gang at the Shuttle), and they do it right. Online orders are the same as regular phone orders, the pizza is GREAT, and the employees are smart.

Do they pay their people more? Not at first, but as most employees start as freshmen in college, and stay until they graduate, and some beyond that, eventually they do. There are guys there with engineering degrees who deliver pizzas and wouldn't dream of leaving!

So what's "the secret?"

They care about and listen to their customers and their employees. Many of the pizza creations are because customers or an employee asked for the combination, and they tried it.

They RESPECT their employees. They let employees set their own schedules, and then they expect you to come in when you say you will. They treat their employees like adults, they have no dress code (other than clean clothes, an apron, and a hat if you work in the kitchen, a hat and t-shirt if you work at the counter and no uniform for drivers), and they are HUGELY successful.

And yes, they do some amazing marketing as well, and have capitalized on buzz marketing since LONG before buzz marketing was buzz marketing.

How do I know all of this about Pizza Shuttle? I worked there when I was in college, and I witnessed firsthand how much fun it could be to deliver pizza with people who cared about me. Now that they are 20 minutes away, I don't get delivery anymore, but I still eat there as often as I can. I was there this past Saturday. Great pizza, and greater people.

People make the difference. Not "better ingredients, better pizza."

Better people make better pizza.

Technorati Tags: papa john's, pizza shuttle, pizza, glendale

Comments

[Rick Cockrum]

Hi Phil,

Pizza Shuttle sounds like a great place. We have a local place like that. I wish I could give you the name of the store, but I can't. Everyone knows it as Police Station Pizza because it's located in the old police station. I don't know if anyone knows its real name. They don't deliver. They don't have in-house tables. But every night that have lines flowing out the doors because people enjoy the atmosphere and the pizza. Even with a lobby full, they remember orders without any kind of hassle. They want what we want - a fun place to eat where you get what you want quickly, without mistakes, and with pleasure as a matter of course.

There is a local chain, Vocelli's, that does deliver. The situation there is like Police Station.

It is possible, as you show with Pizza Shuttle, to get good food and great service at a minimal cost.

I appreciate Judy's response, but it seems to say:
1. Corporate decided to put in the internet system. I'm bored with pizza and I'm not going to see how it works from the customer's end.
2. Training is an expense, not an investment.
3. It's the customer's fault you don't get good service. You're too cheap to pay for it.

I've worked in fast food. I've delivered pizza for several companies. Training always included classroom and OJT. Attitudes do tend to flow downhill. Whatever the franchise owner feels will be passed to their managers and then to other employees.

I'm sorry this was so long, but customer service is possible and helps the bottom line. It doesn't hurt it.

[Kermit1Fan]

Seems to me that there is one glaring difference between Papa John's and the Pizza Shuttle: the employees are empowered to make a great customer experience. In the Papa John's examples, what I see is a lack of empowerment on any level to say "gosh, we have a problem here, and by giving you the discount or remaking your pizza, I can solve it."

It sounds like Pizza Shuttle, on the other hand, respects their employees, and probably gives them some leeway to make things right -- for both the company and the customer. It's a two-way street, after all...

[Dave Sovde]

"They care about and listen to their customers and their employees."

"They RESPECT their employees."

Poor customer service is almost always related to leadership not understanding the value of knowing what their frontline team leaders and staff think the business should do to become and remain extraordinary.

[Christine Kane]

See? I told you on Valentine's Day to just stick with sushi!!!

(oh, and always buy local.)

happy weekend phil!

[ljnd]

I have heard so many things about Papa John's and Pizza Hut and other chains - as opposed to the indies like Pizza Shuttle. You might consider going to www.measuredup.com to give Pizza Shuttle a shout-out - it's a website where consumers can share experiences (positive and negative) about local businesses as well as national chains. I do this for the businesses in my neighborhood.

[Emily]

To whom it may concern, the manager, owner, president…

It is not in my nature to complain, and from the get go of this letter I would like you to know that. I have not had many encounters with pizza shuttle food or staff, but on the night of July 1, 2008 after I received my order I thought it may be the last time I eat my favorite pepperoni and cream cheese.

We had our roommate move in that night from California (only his second time in Lawrence) and as a thank you he asked if he could treat us to pizza. We looked at the time (10:30ish) and called you guys. Finally completed our order after my cell phone died and then my roommates didn’t get a good connection, but we got it. The total was $16 and some odd change. $16 and some odd change, our roommate handed me two tens, a five, and two ones.

When our order arrived about 11:30pm I handed the gentleman the ten, five, and two ones; he glared at me and my roommate and aggressively handed us our order. I looked at him and apologized that the tip was not enough and asked if he could break a ten, “Of course I can break anything” he said. So at this point I’m a bit flustered, not only had a bragged about the cream cheese pizza, but the kindness of people in Lawrence. As I tried to quickly think how much I could afford to give away to someone who is ungrateful I just handed him the other ten (making it $20) and told him to keep it. He looked at me and said, “That was the better of the two options”. I did pizza delivery for a small parlor that stayed open until 3 or 5am in a college town and was grateful for a $.25 tip!! I will never order a pizza shuttle pizza again, and I apologize that my tip was not good enough. I can only hope this one is.

Sincerely,

The horrible tipper

*this is the letter that I sent to my local pizza shuttle and i'm very dissapointed, but I can't bring myself back in fear of that ungrateful delivery guy!!!