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Delivery times?????

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what time do u guys stop delivering, and how much is your minimum? I have had calls just for 1 sandwich to be delivered across town, the sandwich only cost 4.00. I also get calls for 1 pie I have coupons for 9.00 w/ free topping and they want it delivered 3-4 miles away. Is that practical, I started telling people a 20.00 minimum or it has to be close to that 4 me to deliver. Also I close at 9:00 p.m. and I had a customer who came in earlier that day bought a pie loved it and called me back at 8:55 AND WANTED ME TO MAKE HIM A PIE AND DELIVER. i KINDLY TOLD HIM WE WERE CLOSING AND MY DELIVERY DRIVER ALREADY LEFT we close at 9:00 he said its not 9:00pm. I said I have noone to deliver he got mad and told me that hell goto Dominoes for now on. WTF we already had cleaned up and were getting ready to leave has any1 else experienced this.
 
We had a lot of problem with that - gee, weren’t they hungry 15 minutes AGO?

We have a $10 minimum and stop taking delivery orders 15 minutes before closing time. We’ll deliver so long as the order can be made and the driver leave by the stated time we close. We really hate to say no to the business, but it’s a balancing act with closing drivers that have to get up for their day job. Fridays and Saturdays, we often have drivers coming back 45 mins to an hour after closing because of the late rush.
 
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we have a $15 minimum for delivery…charge $1.50 & give it all 2 the driver…

For last minute delivers, you might try this phrase…

“All of our drivers are out on their last delivery runs but we’re still open for carry-out until xxx”.
 
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We are open till 10:00. We take orders till 10:00. Simple as that. If I find out about my closers turning down orders 5 min till closing they are fired.

Thats just the way we do it.

russ cox
 
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Do you want to deliver or not? That is the question! Sorry in advance for the harsh tone I am sure this message is going to have.

First off do you close at 9:00 or 8:55? If you want LEAVE at 9:00 then you should close at 8:00. Sure we all love to get out on time. Sure we all get frustrated when things are cleaned up and ready to go and we get the last call at :59. But we are open.

Think about it…this guy came in earlier and loved your food so much he wanted another. To go on and on to him about why you DON’T want his business (cause really that is what you did) is ridiculous.

Had it been me (although I would never let my driver leave until AFTER close) I would have thanked him and said nothing about MY problem. I would have made the order locked up the store taken it and came back and finished MY work. But nope instead a would be REGULAR customer hung up pissed and called dominoes.

I fire managers when I call at 9:55 and they say we are closed.

As for delivery…do you charge for delivery? If so what do you care if they order 4.00 worth of food?

Our minimum delivery is 5.00 including our .99 delivery and tax. The only thing on our menu which wouldn’t add up to over 5.00 is soda. Sure I won’t deliver only a 6 pack of soda. But a sub What do I care? My drivers couldn’t care either. They most likely will still get a tip. Instead you want them standing around doing nothing?

I just don’t understand it, have you lost sight on the fact that you own and operate a pizza business. Without these customers you are pissing off you will be closed within 2 years.

Let me guess…someone orders a pizza and wants to pay with change…Nope not at your place.

Someone calls and says YOU forgot ranch with their wings…You won’t take it back.

Someone calls and picks up and order and finds a hair but lives in town… you won’t deliver it they have to pick it up.

Someone calls at 10:05AM and you don’t open till 11:00 you don’t take the order.

Gosh no offense, but I know we are successful because we would gladly do any of the above and more. I love our customers and bend over back wards for them.

Kind acts cost as much as a couple dozen flyers. I would rather personally win them over than some marketing scheme.

Don’t get caught up in how you feel, get caught up in how your customers feel. That will make you a success.
 
oh yeah I forgot to mention. We have a factory in town that takes lunch at 10 we close at 10. Some nights we get 300 dollars worth of deliveries at 10. Some nights we get 1 for 6.00 but we get the business because the other pizza places closes at 10 and stops delivering at 9:45.

I laugh all the way to the bank.
 
If you’re open til 9 you should take ALL orders till 9. It doesn’t matter if it’s 8.59 and you’re ready to shut the lights off and go home. If you’re open til 9 and that is what you advertise then you should stay open til 9. That is one of my biggest pet peeves, I absolutely hate going into a restaurant when I’ve already made up my mind and set my mind on getting a particular item to only be told, we closed early or we can’t make that now. It makes me angry and I don’t go back for a while. The pizza business is a cut throat business, you have got to be a complete customer maniac, be willing to do ANYTHING it takes to make them happy. If you piss one customer off you can bet he will tell at least ten people about it. This kind of thing is how a restaurant’s image gets damaged. It takes no time at all to lose a customer base, but getting it back could take a year or better. If I ever found out one of my closing managers closed even two minutes early, they would join the unemployment line. It’s unacceptable in my eyes, to close early, unless of course weather dictates otherwise.

About the minimum… mine is 8.50. I tell that to my customers who only want a sandwich or something else that costs less than that. Then I charge them a delivery fee that will bring the sale up to the minimum, if they don’t like that then they can either come pick it up or not order. Twenty dollars seems really high, think about it. A single guy wants a medium pizza… that costs what ten bucks? you don’t deliver to him he will call one of your competitors who will, what does that mean? you lost a sale and a potential repeat customer. You’re running a business driven by customers, without customers you have nothing. Make customers your focus or you will fail.
 
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I once heard someone say " Wouldn’t you be pissed if you went to the gas station that closes at 10 at 9:55 and they told you pumps were already turned off." Same goes for the pizza ovens. We all dislike a last minute order, but or hours say we are open until 10 not 9:55.
 
definitely good points made but if you close at 9:00 I would think that meant 9:00 now I would have to pay extra half hour extra plus wait another half hour now now thats 10:00p.m. were closing instead of 9:00p.m.
Let me give u a little more insight I also hate delivering late because my wife went on an 8:00p.m. delivery and someone broke her back window about 2 weeks ago, it was definitely a unsafe situation plus the dominoes drivers been robbed 3 times in the last 6 months which makes things very different to look at when delivering so late :cry:
 
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up23:
Also I close at 9:00 p.m. and I had a customer who came in earlier that day bought a pie loved it and called me back at 8:55 AND WANTED ME TO MAKE HIM A PIE AND DELIVER. i KINDLY TOLD HIM WE WERE CLOSING AND MY DELIVERY DRIVER ALREADY LEFT we close at 9:00 he said its not 9:00pm. I said I have noone to deliver he got mad and told me that hell goto Dominoes for now on. WTF we already had cleaned up and were getting ready to leave has any1 else experienced this.
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I read this an I wonder if you aren’t just pulling our leg, trying to get us to react. Surely no one in their right mind thinks like this - or would even question why the customer would be mad.

Do you close at 9 or do you leave at 9? Totally different things. If you want to leave at 9, close before 9.

Silly.
 
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if you’re worried about delivery drivers safety then don’t deliver to unsafe areas, you can do that. Twenty years ago when i got into the restaurant business I learned and accepted that sometimes customers come in and order right at close, yeah that means you have to stay longer, yeah that means more labor costs, but do you know what else that means. It means you have a happy customer, that customer left your store with a good experience, or they had a good delivery experience. You took care of them even though it was right at close and they’ll remember that and will likely be a repeat customer. This business is driven by customers, with out customers we would all be jobless, you have to go the extra mile for every customer, even those that order two minutes before close. And, in any restaurant that I’ve ever worked in it is VERY RARE to leave right at closing time. Most of the times we were in the restaurant up to an hour or more after close.

There are a lot of pizza shops that won’t deliver to neighborhoods where their drivers are likely to get robbed, that is one of the few exceptions where you refuse an order.
 
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up23:
Also I close at 9:00 p.m. and I had a customer who came in earlier that day bought a pie loved it and called me back at 8:55 AND WANTED ME TO MAKE HIM A PIE AND DELIVER. i KINDLY TOLD HIM WE WERE CLOSING AND MY DELIVERY DRIVER ALREADY LEFT we close at 9:00 he said its not 9:00pm. I said I have noone to deliver he got mad and told me that hell goto Dominoes for now on. WTF we already had cleaned up and were getting ready to leave has any1 else experienced this.
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Wow you dropped the ball on this one up23. All that doorhanging, all that marketing effort goes right in the pooper when you pull stuff like this. We get late orders all the time and we handle them with as much professionalism as we do the orders throughout the day.

If you send your driver home early(before you close) you better be willing and able to deliver it yourself. There’s been plenty of times where we’ve been dead, I send the driver home at 5 mins. til and then we get an order. I make it, pay for it and then deliver it on my way home.

Minimum for us is $6 bucks.
 
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Dayum, look at all that tension and built up hostility everyone’s showing today. I think a lot has to do with the subject because at least a dozen times in everyone’s pizza career they’ve been faced with a similar issue. Here’s your answer:

Look at your hours of operation posted on the front door/counter/window. What time does it say you close? Whatever time that sign states is the time you should stop taking orders. It doesn’t matter if you’re delivery, carryout, or dine in. The time stated is the time you close. You close any earlier and you’re opening a can of worms. Up23, you’re a cool cat and I like you so I’m not holding anything against you or your operations. This was a learning experience for you so please make sure you learned something from this situation. I think in this case you’ve just gained one customer and lost 4 (him and the 3 friends he’ll most assuredly tell about his experience) in one day because of the situation presented to you. What could you have done to keep him from being pissed?

Have you ever gone to Mickey D’s 10 minutes before closing to order something and they said “Sorry, we’re closed?” Most times: Hell no. They ALWAYS stay open until their reported closing time. Though this is the case you’ll see the majority of the time, there are still some stores out there who are managed by laziness. I’ve actually come across this situation once where they did in fact close up shop early and I immediately reported it to the owner, who happened to be a friend of mine. You wanna see somebody pissed off? You should’ve seen him when I told him that. I think “livid” would be the correct word to use.

In this business, you underpromise and overdeliver. That’s the standard and you must adhere to it or you’ll find yourself in trouble.

-J_r0kk
 
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My minimum order is $15 before taxes as I do not charge a delivery fee the $4 I pay the driver comes out of the sale and I would be loosing money bigtime.
If you want to let your driver leave early then advertise that deliveries end 1/2 before close and there is no confusion. I don’t do it that way but there are stores in my area that do.
When I schedule my end of the night staff the schedule says “close” This means we take orders up to the posted closing hour THEN do all the clean up and go home. I have even had customers knock on the window at 10 minutes after closing to order and if they are regulars I will make their order and remind them of my hours.
 
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I guess u learn something new everyday thanx for the comments and suggestions and you have just proved my point to my other half we havent been talking for 3 days cause of this situation shes the delivery driver and she looooves to leave early.
 
I dont see a problem with setting a minimum charge. But as far as what time you close and what time you deliver that is another story. When you go to the gas station do they say sorry we close in 5 minutes you cant get gas but you can buy a magazine and some pop because we already dipped the tanks! I know that is a bit different but really why are we in business? to make money so why would you tell them to go spend money somewhere else? Im not saying its right or wrong the competition here cuts off deliveries 30 min before they close but that is also one reason I kick butt here in town I go out of my way to make the customer feel special and do whatever it takes to keep them happy. You want a pizza delivered 1 minutes before im closed you got it!
 
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The only feasible alternative I have to mention that differs from those already posted - you CAN have a policy that the store is open til 9, with delivery available until 8. But ONLY if that is a POLICY, that is consistent, and advertised that way, etc.
I went from only offering delivery in the evening, to offering delivery whenever we’re open. And yes - we’ll pull all the toppings back out and make a pizza at 11:59 if we get an order then…
 
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up23:
I guess u learn something new everyday thanx for the comments and suggestions and you have just proved my point to my other half we havent been talking for 3 days cause of this situation shes the delivery driver and she looooves to leave early.
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When you have your ‘other half’ working with you, always manage with the big head, not the little one. I’m sure she talked to you about commitment within your relationship… We’ll now it’s your turn to talk to here about commitment to the shop. If you close at 9pm schedule her until 9:30p and make it clear that she’s expected to stay until 9:30p. This way she’ll see as still getting out early when she leaves a 9:05p rather than 8:55p.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve open my front door to customers looking in after I’ve closed. I always turn the oven back on, pull everything back out and make them whatever they want with a smile. Those people will not forget what you did for them and will become a good customer.
 
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Up23,

Try sending that customer a freebie…everybody makes mistakes…

I guess the common theme is CONSISTENCY! We have a few wierd policies that would normally cause problems but since we are always consistent it does not piss people off.We do not deliver on Fridays after 5PM (Yeah, I know I did not mistype)…people dont understand then they come down to pickup and see why…everybody here is trained to say “We deliver ALL day & night EXCEPT Fridays after 5PM”. Also our kitchen (grill) closes an hour early for cleanup, etc. This is clearly stated on all our menus and customers dining in are reminded we only serve pizza, salads and calzones accordingly. Also we are closed Sundays…need a day off!

I am prepared to personally deliver any orders that a driver is no longer around for and we NEVER close early
 
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