pizzapad:
If your driver leaves on time, gets rear-ended & delivers the pizza 1 hour late they are gonna be pissed, and don’t care if he is hurt or not, sad but true.
There is no quick fix, or sounds like…12 months searching for drivers, no not so quick fix either.
Bottom line is you work smart, effective, and never cut corners. When a customers calls & you’ve got 10 deliveries backed up, you simply tell them it will be 1 hour. If it is not acceptable to them at that point then that is their choice to not order.
As far as reasonable…ha! Resasonable can ONLY be defined by the guy holding the dollar (no matter how un-reasonable he may be!)
Remember, they choose us for a reason…quality, price, service, convience…each one different.
I think the flyer could work with some folks & could piss off some folks…remember they are only opinions!
Just my thoughts!
No problems with your thoughts and I agree with you.
What I am highlighting to our customers is that are times when things go astray and yes some couldn’t give a rats. It’s their choice to order again from us or not. If we can’t get it to them any faster then unfortunately this is the situation. They are free to order elsewhere but I know that no-one for miles around us can deliver any quicker.
We know that not one other shop within miles of us can match our service (all beit slow by standards of 18 months ago) - Domino’s quoting 2 hours, and I did mention this 5 months ago as well, others just unable to deliver at all because they have no drivers or only have one to do 15 - 20 deliveries.
I may be misjudging myself with this box topper but already we have had feedback thanking us for being upfront about our situation (these are probably faithfull customers or people who would never complain anyway
).
I guess if telling people that at times we can’t give them the service they used to get when unemployment was high, wages were low and people would do any work, because now the tide has changed completely, is AN EXCUSE then so be it.
I guess the same is for the tavern not far from us who only 4 months ago won the National title for best restaurant in a tavern taking out a full page advert in the newspaper stating that they have had to close the restaurant because they cannot get staff to fill the postions required to run it. Same for the restaurants and cafes who now open limited hours for the same reason and put big signs in their windows.
Im not hung up on the situation to the point I’m slitting my wrists because we are doing great business and are seeing strong growth but I don’t want my customers thinking that we don’t give a rats about them. That is why we are telling them that at times not everything is perfect and that despite the problems of securing drivers we are still striving to give them the best possible service.
When they order we estimate to the best of our ability a delivery time based on times logged over a period of time. We make it very clear when they ask “how long” we tell them “it will be at least xyz, but we will endeavour to get it to you as quickly as we can”. But the exceptions happen such as it starts raining after a long dry period and the roads are slippery causing an accident and the driver is boxed in the traffic jam, or a drivers car breaks down or just doesn’t turn up for his shift. Unfortunately we don’t have the backup staff to cover these situations, plus not everyone has family or friends who will come in at the drop of the hat.
I could buy 50 cars but still not get the drivers to drive them.
We do at times tell people that we couldn’t get a delivery to them for at least 2 hours (very rarely and only to extreme outlying delivery areas) and suggest they pick up. Some do some try elsewhere.
I still believe it is better to be upfront and honest with this boxtopper. They then know sometimes that they can possibly have to wait longer and if they decide to go elsewhere I know for a fact it won’t be any better than what we can offer.
They then have the choice to either order a delivery and take the chance that MAYBE there may be a delay, or not, or come in and pick up and get it quicker.
It is definitely a different market here to there and it makes me laugh to read the posts saying I would see an oportunity in your market, when in reality you wouldn’t beacsue you would be in the same boat employment wise.
Guys I’m not whinging or whatever. All I’m doing is telling it like it is and I think my customers on the whole would appreciate this honesty rather than be fed bulls*#t like PH and Domino’s do.
I stiunderstand a lot of the input and comment you guys are putting forward and this is a great thing of this forum that it gives everyone the opportunity to voice their opinions.
For a closing comment - tonight we had a driver who has been AWOL for a week or so (has some serious personal problems) turned up unannounced and filled in as an extra driver for the night and no delivery was later than 45 minutes, even though we were quoting up to an hour. And this was the 2nd biggest Saturday we have done, $2.500. Go figure this as I can’t :shock:
Dave
