Poor secret shopper reviews

Well, another week has passed at the Hut, and we have gotten a new all time low score (33 out of a possible 100) on a secret shopper review (champs check). This messes up my Store Managers bonus check, so she is mad at our recent round of low scores. Our last round of kids that have been hired to take orders are not putting in the right toppings or reading back the order to verify they hit the right buttons. These kids that are on the phones do not seem to care if they do their job correctly or not. This means the customer is not getting the right pizza, and will be more likely to give a poor review. I actually catch some customers purposely changing their order 3 times (while taking their order) so they can say I gave them the wrong order or pizza. I will repeat their order, sometimes making up items along the way. 1/3 of the time, they do not even catch it. There will always be scammers, but I understand when a person wants something on only half of the pizza, the the "Phone Bitch" puts it in wrong. For many years, our CSR's were almost always females. So the veterans started calling them that. Nowadays, we have more male CSR's but we still call them that.
I had another wrong address this week. The unit number was wrong. Only the second time they ordered. This means that the first time that they ordered, the phone bitch did not repeat the unit number clearly or with a name. IE: So that was B as in Boy , not D as in Dog? Luckily, the customer heard my car idling and came out looking for me. I was just about to call them. 8 out of ten times, a quick phone call will get me a good address. Some of the times, the numbers are swtiched by the phone bitch. IE: 9126 instead of 9216. This is why it is required to verify all addresses. Sometimes I feel like sending this one guys pizza order to oblivian. He calls most Sunday nights. He blurts out his phone number rather quickly. I ask for his address. He says "It should be in your computer". I reply "It is in the computer, but if I hit the wrong phone number, it will go to the wrong house". He mumbles his address. For 3 weeks in a row, we got through this routine. He calls after the regular phone order takers go home, so the drivers or manager has to get the phone.
What is so friggin hard about writing a check? I go to houses where the person writing the check will ask me 3 times what the total is. When I worked for BlackJack Pizza, a smaller Denver based franchise, I would add a dollar to the total every time they asked. Back then, all the receipts were hand written and it was hard to find the order if they customer actually called back for a total. Now, the computer will give out the total when you look it up. My longest time to wait to get paid is 14 minutes. This ignut forgot he had no checkbook, and wanted to pay with a Canadian $100 bill. First, we are not allowed to take any bills larger than a $20. Second, we are not allowed to take foreign money. He had just got back from Canada, and didn't have any American money on him. His wife had ran off to the mall with both checkbooks in the car. I normally would have left after 5 minutes of waiting, but it was during a dayshift and this guys house was one of the farthest runs from the store. He also begged me to wait since he had called her Cell Phone. So if I had left, someone would have had to drive all the way back to his house. His wife finally called him back, and said she was 3 minutes away. I got a $5 tip but it was not worth it. I have asked several different Managers and they usually say I do not have to wait more than 5 minutes to get paid or to wait for someone returning home. 2 years ago, I called a customer after no one answered their door. I verified I was at the right house. They said "Oh, were at Blockbuster getting a movie, can you wait there untill we get back?" I replied "No, I have another delivery in my car and will be going to deliver that one. I will be back to your house in 10 minutes or less." This did not please the customer as they said they would be home in 2 minutes. I highly doubt they were home in 2 minutes as they had not paid for their movie, and would have to do that. Thank God for Cell Phones. Before I would have to drive to a pay phone to call a customer. Now I just pull out my Cell Phone and call. Sometimes I really surprise the customer when I call them from their front Porch. They are usually outside, in the basement, or have the TV or Music turned up too loud to be able to hear the doorbell. Some drivers will not call. They will just return to the Unit, and say no one was home. About 80% of the time, the customer will call and say their pizza never showed up. Then we have to remake it (more food costs) and have another driver deliver it. I have some managers that will give me money for having to use my own phone. Used to, we would get 35 cents for each time we had to use a pay phone. Well off for another fun filled week at the Hut.


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Submitted by Demandred on Thu, 05/06/2004 - 07:32.

In my city, we have a CSC (Customer Service Center) that takes all phone orders, carryout or delivery. Needless to say, all our champschecks suck, because they're so rude to customers. We often get bitched out by customers because of this. When we get our mystery shoppers, that counts against our store, not CSC. CSC can't spell anything, so addresses and phone numbers are always screwed. If we need to have a phone order voided, we have to call CSC and explain why. If a customer calls CSC with a complaint, they just give them the number to our store, even though theyre not supposed to, and theyre the ones that screwed up. We dont have to take phone orders, but we have all new problems.

Demandred

Submitted by Rob is the Pizzaman on Thu, 05/06/2004 - 21:47.

They did away with the CSC in Denver about 7 years ago. I do remember how often we would get out of areas and other problems. Our CSC went down for over 2 hours one friday. That sucked royally, as no drivers made much money that nite. If we had better Phone People, we would have more orders. Our hold time is too long, and we lose 2-4 phone calls out of every 100 or so. The phone system computer keeps track of all that.

Submitted by Demandred on Fri, 05/07/2004 - 07:55.

I've done it both ways. It sucks both ways. I hate answering phones but I'm damn sure better at it than most. Anyone who is any good at answering phones is going to go where he/she can make more than $5.15/hr.

Submitted by Rob is the Pizzaman on Thu, 05/20/2004 - 03:23.

Around here (Denver) most of the HS kids do not want to work that hard at a job. This means we get a fair share of kids that have had no other jobs, and like that they get to sit on their lazy backsides while only working 3 out of their 4 hour shift. I usually can take 2 or 3 orders to their 1 when I jump on the phones. I do not let the customer go on and on.. I ask what size.. then what crust.. then what toppings. This is how our order entry system wants things done. This really does speed up the order process. I hate it when some kids blurts out "I want a Pepperoni and cheese pizza" I can not put in toppings until I get the size then the dough or crust type. Drunks rarely even have an idea who they called, much less what type of dough they want. No one is training these new phone people very well. My Store manager is letting any phone person train the newbies. Even if it is their buddy, and they could care less about getting trained. I used to be asked to train most of the new drivers on how to take phone orders. Now most of the newbie drivers are not getting trained on the phones. This means we have dropped calls, since the poorly trained phone order takers are taking to long to take an order. People rarely will stay on hold for more than 2 minutes. They have 4 other Pizza Places that will deliver to their house in our area.

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/11/2004 - 09:05.

Have you guys seen http://www.tipthepizzaguy.com/?

Submitted by Rob is the Pizzaman on Thu, 06/24/2004 - 20:37.

This one was most likely me. It happened on a Sunday around noon, and there is only one other driver. This person said the phone person was not friendly, the driver was not friendly, the driver was in a bad mood or something to that effect. There is not much I can do about being in a bad mood. This was the weekend where the BSM was giving me a real bad time and I really didn't want to be there. If I tell them the total, give them the pizza, say thanks if the tip is over $1, what else can I say. I am not going to make chitchat with every customer. It was only a 83 out of 100, but it was the first one that wasn't a 100 in over a week. Oh well, I guess I will have to put on my fake smile more often.

Submitted by Mister X on Fri, 06/25/2004 - 00:57.

It's not your fault if your manager was being an ass. NO ONE wants to be put down. No one. I'm sick to death of this bad treatment by managers. Take care.

[Moderator]

Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 07/24/2004 - 19:16.

I worked at the Enumclaw Pizza Hut for two years, which for the most part, we didn't get scammers often, and the phone rules are enforced. Our Area Coach mandated phone surveys to make sure of this.

All was good in Enumclaw except for the ten months we had this total loser in command who never treated his employees right. I am thankful he is gone now.