Growing up in Oklahoma, Pizza Hut was our pizza chain of choice, I spent the obligatory high school years working at a pizza shop called Simple Simon’s. After I went to college, we turned to Little Caesar’s $5 pizzas to cure us of our Friday night “sickness”. And now, in Boston, if we’re not visiting one of the local pizza/sandwich/deli/froyo/salad shops around here (which are great), we’re going to Naked Pizza.
Pizza Hut, Little Caesar’s and Naked Pizza all have the same decor: they’re small, cramped, had maybe a single table and a couple of chairs. It was oddly lit (and I’m pretty sure everyone in there was high and under 20 years old).
The truth is, more than 60% of pizza customers order for delivery. But that still leaves 40% (give or take, obviously) that walk into the store to pick up their pizza.
Domino’s, who started an entire transparency and rebrand campaign in 2009, has noticed that walk-in customers are essentially being ignored, and has started a pilot program in Ann Arbor to address it.
“The fact is, better than one in three of our customers come into our stores for carryout,” Doyle explained. “We just haven’t been very welcoming to those folks in the past.”
“What our customers told us they want is to be able to see us make the pizza,” he continued.
The newly designed stores feature open kitchens so customers can see employees spinning dough in the air and prepping pizzas. It includes interactive features such as a chalkboard for customers to write comments.
Customer experience matters, and Domino’s is using customer feedback to help make a seemingly mundane customer experience better.