Pizza fail

[Muses_nightmare]

My boyfriend wanted pizza tonight, there is a pizza place right beside our house, as in a 2 minute walk if you have to wait for the light. We always order carryout from this store, usually through their website, well for whatever reason their site wasn't working, so my boyfriend called in the order. Now this is a large chain, so it went through a call centre rather than to the actual store. My boyfriend called and specifically selected carryout, 20 minutes later a delivery person shows up at our door.

My boyfriend explains to the delivery person that this was supposed to be carryout, and the delivery person says that they've been having problems with the phone in orders with one operator, which happened to be the one we had. BF asks if he what he should do, if he should get the delivery person to take the pizza back over and have him come and pick it up. The delivery guy says that he could do it there, and that the price would be the cost of the pizza plus tax, without the delivery charge. Pizza comes to around $20 with tax, bf gives the delivery person $22, the $2 being a small tip for him having to walk over to our place.

We get a call a few minutes later, they give my boyfriend crap about not paying the delivery charge, despite being told that we had specifically requested carryout, considering where we live in relation to the store it doesn't make sense to pay $2.25 or something for delivery. It was the call centre's mistake, not ours, and the driver had told us it was okay. They put my boyfriend on hold, and someone else comes on the phone, I'm assuming a manager or owner, and tells him that they won't be delivering to our place anymore, which is stupid, because we didn't want delivery in the first place, so banning delivery to us is pointless.

My BF sent an e-mail to customer service for the chain, not that we expect that to do anything, but he couldn't just let it stand. I also want to make it clear that he was never rude to anyone, especially not the delivery person, he did get a bit of an annoyed tone when they told him that we were banned from delivery from that store, and he told them that he would be contacting corporate about it, but that was at the very end of the conversation. He even stayed on when they put him on hold after they called us and were quite rude (he thought, I didn't hear their end), he could have just hung up on them.

and to top it all off the pizza we ordered was pretty gross.

[Peppergirl]

Epic, EPIC fail.

Particularly when we read so many stories on here about chain pizza management going the complete OPPOSITE way and kissing SC ass at all costs, regardless of whether or not they're right, wrong or completely unreasonable.

Like you said, the email may not go far but I would definitely follow up with someone higher. Perhaps even consider reporting them to a district manager or something. That was completely uncalled for!

[Racket_Man]

I HATE HATE HATE call centers for pizza places.

my franchises "dances with the idiots" (sorry to those who do this but the call center(s) they contracted with seemed to only employ total morons) experiment ended in a total disaster and many many pissed off customers.

I can kinda see their point as the devliery person did attempt to deliver the order BUT.... the driver DID say he would take care of it at the store. so him(her) being an employee either should have followed through at the store or contacted the MOD themselves right at your door.

if this is a KNOWN problem the MOD should have not gotten snotthy with you

First of all they actually BANNED you from even getting delivery again (even though you have no history of delivery)????

second of all how did they get your address if all you do is carrout orders???? most places I know of that do carryout never even ask for an address for a carryout order just maybe a phone number and a name. I assume the call center does some kind of phone #/address reverse-lookup which in and of itself is kinda strange since you could be calling from an address that is not yours (even though it was supposed to be carryout only).


jeeze with the "low standard" for banning criteria I guess that place has a LOT of banned customers/addresses

I would consider finding out who the franchise owner is for that place and contacting them directly.

[Muses_nightmare]

I know that when we enter our orders online we have to enter our address (but not our apartment #) in order to find the closest store. My boyfriend had said several times that it was a carryout order when he was on the phone. I think he gave our address, but that was probably to find the closest location again, and I don't think it was our apartment number, just the building address, and well, they know where the building is. Maybe they did a reverse lookup, but who knows.

I will have to let my boyfriend know about talking to the franchise owner. We'll see if anything comes of the e-mail he wrote as well. This is the first real problem we've had with this store, and we used to go there when we lived here a few years ago as well.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

If the pizza was gross, I'd consider being banned from delivery a blessing.

Life's too short to eat bad pizza!

[Project_Mars]

If the pizza was gross, I'd consider being banned from delivery a blessing.

Life's too short to eat bad pizza!

This. If all else fails, making homemade pizza from scratch isn't overly difficult (but it does take a bit of time)

[Muses_nightmare]

Eh, well we were trying one of those "it has cheesy breadsticks in the crust" type of pizza, I for one can't stand stuffed crust, but I like their regular pan pizza. We only generally order from there when we're feeling particularly lazy, since it's so close.

We do make homemade pizza every now and then, though honestly I prefer to get take out pizza, the crust is usually better. My boyfriend won't let me try another crust recipe since the one he uses is the one his mom uses. I do love making mini pizzas with pita bread though.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I had something similar happen once. During a particularly bad rain storm, I called for a pizza delivery. The call was to the store, not a call center. I was told they weren't delivering because of the rain, so I ordered it for carry out. A short while later we all got in the car and drove over to the pizza store. They did not have the pizza I ordered, so we waited while they made it. After getting the pizza, and returning home, we found a note on the door from the pizza delivery person saying he tried to deliver our pizza, but no one was home.

[Kristev]

Stuffed crust is my favorite. So expensive, it's a special treat. But I just love it.

[sevendaysky]

I make homemade mini pizzas with english muffins and the usual ingredients. I like this option because my roomie and I can personalize our pizzas and it takes less time even than delivery (time from start to end vs time from call to delivery) and usually tastes better. It's also cheaper, and allows for little quirks of "Hmm, I feel like more of ingredient X today than usual," which delivery doesn't really accomodate.

[Muses_nightmare]

I make homemade mini pizzas with english muffins and the usual ingredients. I like this option because my roomie and I can personalize our pizzas and it takes less time even than delivery (time from start to end vs time from call to delivery) and usually tastes better. It's also cheaper, and allows for little quirks of "Hmm, I feel like more of ingredient X today than usual," which delivery doesn't really accomodate.

I need to get me some english muffins now. That sounds yummy, also have a jar of jalapeños and some feta that are just begging to be on a pizza.

[Kogarashi]

I need to get me some english muffins now. That sounds yummy, also have a jar of jalapeños and some feta that are just begging to be on a pizza.

Hubby and I have found that it helps to toast the english muffins first, then top and bake. I got the recipe itself from my mom and it's great because we can mix and match, use up leftover ingredients, etc. It's also the perfect size for our preschooler and toddler.

[chainedbarista]

even though it's not the greatest, i'll buy some from a grocery store and add mushrooms, olives or whatever else i like for extra yum; the store itself makes some decent pizzas themselves, i just wish they had a hawaiian. mmm!

[EricKei]

Seconded/thirded on English Muffin pizzas - they ROCK! That, and you can make 'em in the toaster oven. And yes, pre-crisping them does indeed help, but under-toast them a little bit to account for the time it takes to melt cheese/"cook" them after adding toppings, so you won't wind up with charcoal bottoms.

[mikoyan29]

Pillsbury works pretty well too, if I remember correctly.