“Biggest error since [Michael] Jordan tried to play baseball.”

That’s how my web strategist, Lena West of xynoMedia, qualifies her decision, late one night hanging out and drinking with friends, to get pizza from Domino’s:

10:43pm: We ordered online.

12:20am: Our order is delivered. Yes, the 30 minute pizza people delivered a pizza almost 2 hours later. The pizza was cold and the delivery guy, Luis, arrived sans Rebecca’s CinnaStix (they tell you your delivery person’s name with the Pizza Tracker online interface). Luis apologized and said he would return in about 15 minutes with the CinnaStix. We also saw through the online interface that our order was made by Vanessa as soon as we placed it, but it sat in a “HeatWave” bag for almost 2 hours after it was made.

1:00am: No Luis. He never came back or called and we called the store at least 10 times, but no one answered the telephone at the store.

(Sidebar: What a lot of people don’t know about Domino’s is that when you call to place your order, you call the number to your local store, but your call goes to a central order-taking location – perhaps somewhere far, far away from your local store. They send the order to the local store and your order is processed. So unless you opt out of the telephone system by pressing “0” – which we tried to no avail at least 2 dozen times – your call is never transferred to your local store. And, when you call the local store number and do manage to get an order-taking person, they have no direct way to reach the store, except to transfer you to the store where they’re already not picking up the telephone. So, in effect Domino’s is using all this new online ordering and call center technology and if a customer has a problem, there is NO recourse other than driving to the store which defeats the whole purpose of delivery. As Onslow would say, “Oh, nahhhhce”.)

1:15am: We actually drove to the store location. (I was the designated/sober driver.)

1:25am: We arrive at the store.

There were three Domino’s employees behind the counter standing around talking. So why, pray tell, wasn’t anyone answering the dern phone?

Two words, folks: Papa John’s.

[via Lip-Sticking]