How do you handle cancelled orders?

[Daddio]

I had this happen last night and would like to know how you would handle the situation.

A young voice on the phone orders a large cheese pizza and asks how much to have it delivered. She is in the free delivery area and the order meets the minimum for free delivery so I quote the price and ask how she is paying. I then tell her how long the estimated delivery time isand end the call.

15 minutes later the same number calls and the same young voice says I am cancelling the order. The pizza is already half cooked so I asked why. She says “You charge too much for delivery”

What do you do?

 

[RobT]

If its a valid reason like an emergency, i don’t mind.

But stupid stuff like that, i will never deliver ever again to that house, unless they’re a big customer. When they ask why, tell them why. Your there to make money, not deal with Bullshit.

 

[cowtown]

Chances are you’ll never hear from that “customer” again so it’s not worth your worry.

The one’s I hate are the people who aren’t home when we deliver. I get about 3 a week. I had one last night. We were there in the estimated time (30-40 minutes) but the customer was not. He had never ordered from us before. I took the order. When my driver told me of the no-show I called and got the same voice and name on the answering machine. It wasn’t a prank. It just leaves me wondering. Maybe he was trapped under something heavy and unable to come to the door. Perhaps he was gasping for his last breath and the last words he heard from a fellow human being were “Cowtown Pizza, anybody home?”

Now I’m sad.

 

[NicksPizza]

RobT:

If its a valid reason like an emergency, i don’t mind.

But stupid stuff like that, i will never deliver ever again to that house, unless they’re a big customer. When they ask why, tell them why. Your there to make money, not deal with Bullshit.

We have a similar kind of policy. If you “stiff” us with an order for no good reason, we expect payment for that “stiff” order before we accept another order from that address/phone#/customer. I’m talking bad deals . . . a large cheese pizza I can resell really quickly, or re-top and sell as a pepperoni pie . . . especially if only half baked.

We’ve had very few of these, and we have probably a 75% payoff rate for those stiffed and wanting another order. A couple of kids are rumored to have gotten “what for” when parents found out about a prank order . . . we forgave those who took the matter in hand, and sent order out to them.

 

[td_VP192]

cowtown:

Chances are you’ll never hear from that “customer” again so it’s not worth your worry.

The one’s I hate are the people who aren’t home when we deliver. I get about 3 a week. I had one last night. We were there in the estimated time (30-40 minutes) but the customer was not. He had never ordered from us before. I took the order. When my driver told me of the no-show I called and got the same voice and name on the answering machine. It wasn’t a prank. It just leaves me wondering. Maybe he was trapped under something heavy and unable to come to the door. Perhaps he was gasping for his last breath and the last words he heard from a fellow human being were “Cowtown Pizza, anybody home?”

Now I’m sad.

LOL !!

 

[bodegahwy]

It happens so rarely that we do not have a policy and I don’t think about it much.

 

[Rockstar_pizza]

we very rarly ever get these but our policy is if it happens we put them in our POS, there next order we repeat to them the last situation and tell them we need a CC to run prior to making their pizza

 

[steve12]

Like many others I dont worry about it and just set the pie out for the employees to eat. They usually appreciate it anyways.

 

[cowtown]

steve12:

Like many others I dont worry about it and just set the pie out for the employees to eat. They usually appreciate it anyways.

Better yet, give the extra pie to a nearby business. Nothing builds goodwill like free food. I have a carryout next door whose employees we feed 3-4 times a week with our screwups. There’s also a nearby bar, barber shop, fire station, etc. The people who work there love us for it and my employees love getting hooked up with discounts and freebies from them. And this way we don’t incentivize the staff to screw up.

 

[snowman]

cowtown:

There’s also a nearby bar, barber shop, fire station, etc.

If the bar doesn’t serve food, you’d better believe every bad order would be dropped off there, along with a stack of coupons. Pizza and beer… what more could a person want?

 

[NicksPizza]

cowtown:

steve12:

Like many others I dont worry about it and just set the pie out for the employees to eat. They usually appreciate it anyways.

Better yet, give the extra pie to a nearby business. Nothing builds goodwill like free food. I have a carryout next door whose employees we feed 3-4 times a week with our screwups. There’s also a nearby bar, barber shop, fire station, etc.

We used to take error orders and leftover food to the fire house. they loved us so much for the surprise at 10pm. We’ve had so little of that in recent year+ that we just haven’t made it over there. It reminds me that we need to take some over to the fire guy. One on shift at a time in our city. Little things like pizza help.