This is the closest I will ever come to a rant.
Pizza Hut has allowed technology to destroy my most beloved childhood restaurant chain.
OK, that’s overblown, I know. But hear me out. If you follow to the end of this article, you will see how websites, call centers and a dialed-in process have knocked America’s pizza king off its pedestal.
It was truly a golden age.
Spare me your thoughts about authentic Italian pizza. Pizza Hut is a distinctly American kind of pizza–perhaps it gets credit for inventing “American” pizza.
All I know is this: In the 1980s and ’90s, the highlight of the week was a visit to Pizza Hut after my brother and I had fiddle and guitar lessons.
It was a ritual. Mom and Dad split a Thin ‘N Crispy Supreme, and we would split a Pepperoni Lovers, usually Pan. Mom would get a Diet Pepsi, Dad sometimes a Pepsi.
Us four kids, of course, drank water. Big families don’t get drinks for everybody. That’s how you go bankrupt. But occasionally, we would take advantage of a Pizza Hut power move and order … a PITCHER of Pepsi.
Then, the most exciting part: While we waited for the pizza, we would each get a quarter and play Double Dragon. Eventually that was replaced with other games like Golden Axe and my favorite, The Astyanax.
We would hear pop music. The waitresses were all cool, like this gal.
I love her sassy eyebrows at the end. Anyway: It felt like you were ascending to your teenage years to dine at Pizza Hut.
Now, they’ve ruined it.
You pretty much can’t dine at Pizza Hut anymore.
Delivery or carryout only at most locations. It feels like a budget move. Once I found a dine-in Pizza Hut, and the plates and forks were all disposable.
Except in rare occasions, no more stained glass lamps. No more red cups. No more, well, basically this entire list of nostalgia from Buzzfeed.
The major exception on that list is the BOOK IT! program, which is alive and well.
Sorta.
Did you know you can only redeem one BOOK IT! personal pan per order?
If you have more than one kid, you have to pay for a separate order for each kid.
The only reason we know that is because of the incredibly friendly staff at the Berea, Ky. Pizza Hut. We just assumed that Pizza Hut’s website was broken.
It often is. We’re not the only ones to feel that way. From the above Buzzfeed article, check out item 13:
Another problem: If you try to call in with any issues about the website, you’ll get a call center.
They are nice, but they can’t help you with the website. (And ask my wife: They can’t help you if you are stuck in a traffic jam and want to delay picking up your pizza by 30 minutes.)
All of that could be forgiven. …
We really could look past all that.
But then my wife finally answered a survey and included her frustrations with BOOK IT! and the website.
When I found out, I winced. I have been around CX initiatives most of my career. I had to wonder, “Who is going to see the survey? What are the consequences of a bad survey?”
My concerns were well-founded. After a form-letter auto-reply, a second email arrived in my wife’s inbox. It might as well be an auto-reply. Here is an excerpt.
Our local Pizza Hut consistently has friendly staff. They are fast, and the pizza is good. Did we just get them in trouble for a problem corporate is having with its website?
The very fact that this is the process tells me a few things. They expect that the stores are at fault and not corporate. They expect that there will be remedial issues. And they aren’t really reading the responses.
It’s a dialed-in response with no bearing on touching a customer with a good experience. In fact, it practically confirmed that I really was having a bad experience.
I’d love to call and clear the air. But I’m afraid I’d get the call center.
Postscript: I have been saying for years that Pizza Hut could take a lot of money from people like me by opening up retro stores–the lampshades, the red cups, the pitchers … even ’80s arcade games and pop.
Apparently the company has at least partly done that. Stay tuned for a blog post where I review one of the Kentucky locations.