Last night I had voucher for a buy one get one free pizza offer from the Pizza Hut. I had my wife place the order via their telephone service and she called me back letting me know the price was going to be $9.50. Pretty good value really. I then turned up at the Newmans Road Pizza Hut outlet in Templestowe. Walked and presented the voucher, giving my name and the price we were told. I didn't think much about it. But then the franchise owner said no. They're not supplying it at the price. I said that was the price we were told. He said no. It is $10.95. I said that wasn't good enough. Pizza Hut had given me a price and they should provide the product at the agreed price. They said no. I walked out without the pizza and decided to go elsewhere.
I thought no, this really isn't good enough. Pizza Hut can't do this to people. I asked my wife to call the Pizza Hut line and let them know what was happening. They admitted they'd made a mistake at $9.50 and the amount entered into the computer was $9.95 which I was happy with. So I went back in and let Pramod know. He said no again. In the meantime the Pizza Hut service called them and their staff said they were refusing to provide the pizza at the price. We escalated it to management but nothing changed.
This is a case where you use the Pizza Hut telephone service to order a Pizza and the local franchisee decides he doesn't want to provide it. To me that is a total breakdown in the Pizza Hut service and leaves me with no confidence in Pizza Hut as a business. Once this happens I no longer trust the Pizza Hut brand and that affects all franchise owners.
This was such a bad experience for me, that we as a family have vowed never to use Pizza Hut again. I've found in the past making a complaint to large companies like Pizza Hut to be largely a waste of time. What really are they going to do or say. The best thing you can do is to take your business elsewhere. In this case this is the second bad experience we've had with the Templestowe Pizza Hut with the new owners.
As a business if you are in a franchise the actions of one franchise may affect your business. In this case if you own a Pizza Hut franchise you won't be getting the business of our family. Of course losing one customer makes little difference to a large business like Pizza Hut, but if they treat people poorly and that becomes endemic in their way of doing business and their systems, then it will have a long term impact. Having a local store overrule the central ordering process means the trust we build up in the Pizza Hut brand which has taken years, is effectively destroyed by one store owner in a moment.
No business is perfect, but if I'm affected by a business that's not part of a franchise I stop using that business. In a franchise I stop using all the services that work under the same umbrella.
I'm sharing this experience as it shows that whilst working under the umbrella of a well known brand name may attract business, there are also situations where it may lose you business.
For me now the two businesses I will give my pizza purchases to will be Panic Pizza in Doncaster East and Rustico Pizza in Bulleen. I've found both of these businesses to be very good and friendly. Both provide pizza the family feels is much better than Pizza Hut. The advantage Pizza Hut had was their vouchers can save some money, but the bad experience and the time wasted for me means their coupons have little value and I won't be wasting my time with them again.
I wonder how many others have experienced similar poor customer service from Pizza Hut.
Kelvin Eldridge
http://www.justlocal.com.au/
Tags: pizza hut aus, pizza hut au, pizza hut coupon, pizza hut pizza deals, vouchers pizza hut
No comments:
Post a Comment