These days, customer experience is king. As in if you don’t provide customers with a great experience 100% of the time, they will go elsewhere. And everyone in your organization needs to understand that. Last night I found an example of an organization that seems to have trouble with that. And that’s Domino’s Canada.
After the massive snowstorm that covered the Greater Toronto Area and beyond with a foot and a half of snow earlier in the week, I ventured out to grab some cereal and milk. While I was doing that, I ordered a pizza using the Domino’s Canada app and chose their “Carside Delivery” option. Which is Domino’s Canada speak for they will bring the pizza out to my car. All I had to do is to enter the make, model and color of my car, and when I arrived at the Domino’s location, I just had to press a button that says “I’m Here” and someone would bring out my pizza and associated beverage.
That sounds simple enough. Except that didn’t happen.
When I arrived I pressed the button that says “I’m here.” Five minutes went by. Nothing. Ten minutes went by. Nothing. When it got to 15 minutes I got fed up and walked into the store and asked professionally and nicely where my pizza was. That’s when the employee handed my pizza which wasn’t exactly hot and beverage and told me that I had not pressed the “I’m here” button. When I showed them my phone which had proof that I did, they made up some excuse about “their systems aren’t working.” At that point I simply walked out.
Top tip for companies: When you screw up, don’t try to push it back onto the customer and make the customer feel like it’s their fault. Because that will end badly 100% of the time.
What really bugged me about the excuse that “their systems aren’t working” is that Domino’s is known for their cutting edge IT infrastructure that has given them a decided edge over their competition. Thus I find it impossible to believe that this excuse was even in the same star system as the truth.
I took my purchase back to my car and quickly typed out this Tweet:
By the time I got home five minutes later, I got this reply:
Top tip for companies with a Twitter account: If a customer is not happy with your product or service, engage them immediately via a Direct Message. Do not tell them to send an email as that sound like a deflection strategy at best, or that you don’t care at worst. On top of that, empower the people behind your Twitter account to handle customer issues so that they get resolved quickly. A good example of an organization that does this well is the telco company Rogers who are able to do full troubleshooting sessions via Twitter direct message. Maybe someone at Domino’s Canada needs to phone someone at Rogers to get some tips on how to do this properly as doing this sort of thing right can turn a negative customer experience into a positive one.
In my case, while I will give Domino’s Canada points for replying quickly, I chose not to send an email. Instead I replied to their Tweet:
I decided to go that route because, not only will I not be using their “Carside Delivery” option again, I won’t be using Domino’s again. The interaction that I had with the Domino’s store was sub-optimal to say the least. And while the people behind the Domino’s Canada Twitter account tried to clean up the mess, the way they decided to do it could have been better. The thing is that ordering a pizza should be the easiest thing in the world to do. But it wasn’t in this case, and I came out with a very negative experience as a result. That’s not a good look for Domino’s Canada. I hope that someone at Domino’s Canada reads this story and ensures that all their stores provide a great customer experience 100% of the time so that more people don’t end up going to another pizza brand like I am planning to do.
How Domino’s Canada Lost A Customer In A Pair Of Sub Optimal Interactions
Posted in Commentary with tags Customer Service, Domino's on January 20, 2022 by itnerdThese days, customer experience is king. As in if you don’t provide customers with a great experience 100% of the time, they will go elsewhere. And everyone in your organization needs to understand that. Last night I found an example of an organization that seems to have trouble with that. And that’s Domino’s Canada.
After the massive snowstorm that covered the Greater Toronto Area and beyond with a foot and a half of snow earlier in the week, I ventured out to grab some cereal and milk. While I was doing that, I ordered a pizza using the Domino’s Canada app and chose their “Carside Delivery” option. Which is Domino’s Canada speak for they will bring the pizza out to my car. All I had to do is to enter the make, model and color of my car, and when I arrived at the Domino’s location, I just had to press a button that says “I’m Here” and someone would bring out my pizza and associated beverage.
That sounds simple enough. Except that didn’t happen.
When I arrived I pressed the button that says “I’m here.” Five minutes went by. Nothing. Ten minutes went by. Nothing. When it got to 15 minutes I got fed up and walked into the store and asked professionally and nicely where my pizza was. That’s when the employee handed my pizza which wasn’t exactly hot and beverage and told me that I had not pressed the “I’m here” button. When I showed them my phone which had proof that I did, they made up some excuse about “their systems aren’t working.” At that point I simply walked out.
Top tip for companies: When you screw up, don’t try to push it back onto the customer and make the customer feel like it’s their fault. Because that will end badly 100% of the time.
What really bugged me about the excuse that “their systems aren’t working” is that Domino’s is known for their cutting edge IT infrastructure that has given them a decided edge over their competition. Thus I find it impossible to believe that this excuse was even in the same star system as the truth.
I took my purchase back to my car and quickly typed out this Tweet:
By the time I got home five minutes later, I got this reply:
Top tip for companies with a Twitter account: If a customer is not happy with your product or service, engage them immediately via a Direct Message. Do not tell them to send an email as that sound like a deflection strategy at best, or that you don’t care at worst. On top of that, empower the people behind your Twitter account to handle customer issues so that they get resolved quickly. A good example of an organization that does this well is the telco company Rogers who are able to do full troubleshooting sessions via Twitter direct message. Maybe someone at Domino’s Canada needs to phone someone at Rogers to get some tips on how to do this properly as doing this sort of thing right can turn a negative customer experience into a positive one.
In my case, while I will give Domino’s Canada points for replying quickly, I chose not to send an email. Instead I replied to their Tweet:
I decided to go that route because, not only will I not be using their “Carside Delivery” option again, I won’t be using Domino’s again. The interaction that I had with the Domino’s store was sub-optimal to say the least. And while the people behind the Domino’s Canada Twitter account tried to clean up the mess, the way they decided to do it could have been better. The thing is that ordering a pizza should be the easiest thing in the world to do. But it wasn’t in this case, and I came out with a very negative experience as a result. That’s not a good look for Domino’s Canada. I hope that someone at Domino’s Canada reads this story and ensures that all their stores provide a great customer experience 100% of the time so that more people don’t end up going to another pizza brand like I am planning to do.
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