Restricted Delivery Areas

[knightwing1995]

I know that in any delivery area there will be certain crime areas that are avoided. My question is how do you handle them when they call for an order? Do you discount if they pick it up? How do you tactfully explain to them the reason?

 

[pizzapirate]

I’m sorry, your address is outside our delivery area.

“My neighbor a couple streets over gets deliveries.”

I’m sorry, but we can only cover so much area and maintain good delivery times.

You already have a delivery area that you deliver to. Treat the troubled areas no differently than other non-delivery areas as far as what you say. Some places are too far, some have too much traffic, some areas you just do not have enough customers to deliver to to make it worth it.

 

[Wizzle_Wassell]

pizzapirate:

I’m sorry, your address is outside our delivery area.

“My neighbor a couple streets over gets deliveries.”

that might be a bit of a problem if the area in question was close to the store.

I’d be honest. ‘I’m really sorry but due to a number of attacks on our/other pizza delivery drivers we are unable to deliver to this area at the moment. However we have a collection special of xyz if you come and pick it up.’

We have a collection special on most of the time so its not an issue for us to tell them about that. If they kick up a fuss be understanding but obviously ‘for the safety of our staff it is just not an option for us at the moment’.

I think that’s tactful enough.

 

[system]

in response. I think if you tell an especially new customer that you would offer a special, they would tell joe up the street that they offer the special, all they would both have to do is ask for delivery in the same bad neighborhood, and you just lost yourself more of a profit because they decided that they would pick it up themselves.

my advise would be just to tell the caller that your slammed with deliveries and can’t make it out there. or tell them that if you deliver to his/her area, you would have to accomidate to ever other schmo on the block that askes for delivery. and you can’t do it.

 

[Wizzle_Wassell]

I offer the same carryout special to everyone so its not a big deal to me. I offer it to a) take some of the strain of delivering to a big delivery area and b) to offer a less expensive option for those who don’t mind coming and getting their food from the shop. I have regular delivery customer occasionally come and pick up from the shop and people who normally get collection sometimes order delivery so it works.

The original post was about telling someone you can not deliver to a specific area due to crime.
Telling someone a lie is just going to get you caught! If you say you are slammed and they come to the shop and see you ain’t they are gonna be pretty pi**ed aren’t they? Just tell the truth.

Even if you don’t do a special don’t make up stories to cover up for a legitimate reason why you can’t delivery.

 

[Rick_G]

I agree. You are already risking alienating the customer by not delivering to him, don’t make it worse by being dishonest. I believe that Wizzle Wassell has the right approach. Honest, polite, yet firm. We all know that there is a risk to us and all of our employees everytime we open the door. It is our responsibilty to control and minimze that risk. If the customer that lives in a “bad” area is reasonable, they will realize that crime is higher in that area. The problem is most people are not reasonable when you tell them they can not have their way. It would be much worse if they get to your store and you have two cars out front with car toppers on and the drivers that are too busy to take more runs are sweeping the floor.
The area I would consider dropping is an apartment complex which is actually walking distance to the store. Since it was built a couple of years ago crime in our area has increased including violent crime, and more often than not, the offenders, when caught are associated with these apartment. We frequently send two drivers to deliver there at night because of the sketchy stairwells. There are some really nice people that live there and there are a few sharks that look at working people as prey.