Papa John’s Delivers
A story on today’s Yahoo! commends Papa John for leveraging the growing trend of text messaging. I would go one step further and commend Papa John for using technology to better meet the needs their Impatient customers. By leveraging the growing trend of text messaging, the pizza chain Papa John is to be commended for allowing hungry customers to now text in their order from wherever they are - an even faster way to place an order without having to go online or talking to a harried store employee. Repeat customers can even save up to 4 “favorites” - which means less ticks go by on Papa John’s Stopwatch before they close the sale.
According to the story “Texting For Pizza“, a Bear Stearns restaurant analyst Joe Buckley said the new ordering methods could help the [pizza] chains win brand loyalty among people who will be eating pizza for decades to come. “The high-technology ways of reaching customers probably appeal to younger people, who live with their text messaging and their BlackBerry,” he said. Nigel Travis, Papa John’s president and chief executive officer, envisions hungry customers text messaging from malls or theaters so when they get home their pizza orders will be on the way. “Our vision is that you can order a Papa John’s pizza anytime of day or night — wherever you are”.
Let’s hope we see this time-saving feature picked up by other food providers!
Phil Gerbyshak makes a great point in his posting: http://makeitgreat.typepad.com/makeitgreat/2007/12/texting-for-piz.html that Papa John’s gets points for strategy and creativity but loses points for actual execution. Hopefully the pizza chain improves its execution before too many Impatient customers employ the “one and you’re done” rule.