Another What do you do?

[Penelope]

1. How long after closing time do you wait for someone to come pick up an order?
2. Say they never showed up. How do you handle:
   1. If they phoned the order in and came in the next day and insisted on paying for it?
   2. If they prepaid for the order and never came back to get it?

 

[RobT]

Whenever we get an order for pickup within 30 minutes of closing, we explain that we close in 30 minutes and we ask if they can get here by then. They all will understand and oblige.

I would never take the money from the people if they came in the next day. Last minute things or emergencies do come up and are understandable. To throw out $5 or $10 worth of food is not worth losing the value of the customer.

I would flag their account in the POS system just in case it happens in the future.

 

[Piper]

I never take the customer’s money if they come in the next day to pay. If they have the courtesy to do that then I think they most likely had an actual emergency that prevented them from picking up.

If someone fails to pick up an order and never attempts to make payment or even bother calling to tell us why they didn’t pick up we put a note on their account that all of their future orders must be paid in advance by credit card.

If someone prepays and never comes back to pick up their pizza - well, that’s not my problem. The food gets thrown out or given away at the end of the night and it’s the customer’s loss.

 

[pizzapirate]

Only had it happen once. A lady came in twenty minutes before closing and ordered a pizza. I personally waited till forty-five minutes after we closed and she never returned.

She came back in the next day and said she came back twenty minutes later for her pizza and we were closed. I didn’t take the order so she did not know I was there the night before. She wanted a new pizza but I offered her one at 50% off. She didn’t understand why she should have to pay anything since the guys in the store could have just eaten it so it would not go to waste. With that kind of response there was obviously no point in discussing it further but she paid the 50% discount.

From time to time people do not pick up pizzas from phone orders. It doesn’t happen very often but really I feel its just a cost of doing business. Obviously if you have repeat offenders you have to do something but other than that its just not worth offending people for the sake of future sales.

 

[Penelope]

Thank you,

This only happens once or twice a year, so it’s not really that big of deal. But I didn’t want to charge a good customer for something that they didn’t receive, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t loosing my mind yet.

 

[NicksPizza]

I like the way PizzaPirate rolls on this one. The realtionship with the customer is the bigger picture. Don’t be a doormat and give them a free pizza, but making an offer to discount a second pie makes good sense. You get a partial sale and potentially keep a customer who orders. A written policy would also help make things clear for everyone in the shop how to handle it all.

I do know that it is always tricky to take phone orders 10 minutes before closing. I hate to lose a sale, we are nearly always there at the shop until 30 minutes after close of front door . . . but I hate to get a no-show at end. They truly are so scarce that we just take the order and make it clear we need them there pretty quick. Really, we are only about 10 minutes away for vast majority of customers.