ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Domino's Pizza has launched Pizza Tracker, technology that allows customers to follow the progress of their order online. The service joins ordering via text messaging as recent innovations that pizza purveyors, other fast feeders and retailers are testing and rolling out to hook customers.
Domino's introduced Pizza Tracker to customers ordering online in a test in late December and rolled it out to customers this month. It is available through more than 3,200 U.S. Domino's Pizza stores that use the company's Domino's Pulse computer system.
Customers who place [image-nocss] orders via telephone or online can now monitor their order's progress via Pizza Tracker at those stores using Domino's Pulse.
Pizza Tracker is linked directly to the computers inside the stores and is accurate to within 40 seconds, said Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Domino's chief information officer, Chris McGlothlin. "Once it leaves the store, drive times vary due to distance, weather and traffic conditions, but customers will know that it's on the way."
Once customers place an order via phone or online, they can go to http://www.dominos.com/ and click on the Pizza Tracker icon. They will see a horizontal bar that lights up red as each step in the process is completed. Customers will see confirmation of their order being received by the store; when it's being prepared; when it's been placed in the oven; when it's been boxed and placed in the Domino's HeatWave bag; and when it's on its way for delivery.
While using Pizza Tracker, customers will be able to provide feedback online, which will go directly to the store to be viewed by the store manager. That kind of feedback will allow the stores to quickly resolve customer service issues and help improve customer loyalty, McGlothlin added.
And the future for text ordering is huge, Jeff DeGraff, business professor at the University of Michigan, recently told USA Today. "Within five years, it will be as common as online orders." However, consumers have to give up something for the convenience, he added. "What they get from you is scary: your personal digits."
Papa John's is airing national TV spots to promote the text ordering that it launched in November. Domino's has offered mobile ordering, which requires cell phone Web access, since July. Pizza Hut is about to start promoting both text and mobile ordering, said the report.
Quiznos, Dunkin' Donuts and Subway have also looked into text ordering, the newspaper added. McDonald's is testing it in Seoul. Starbucks tested it in London and at one U.S. store.
Papa John's CEO Nigel Travis compares the potential to online ordering, which accounts for 20% of Papa John's sales. "Text is the way forward," he told the paper. He predicts it will account for 3% of sales within two years.
The potential pool of users is huge, considering Americans already send 30 billion text messages a month. Noah Glass, founder and CEO of GoMobo.com, predicted texting could account for 25% of all food takeout orders within the decade, the report said.
Text ordering is huge in parts of Asia and Europe. Some think, however, that Americans may be slower to embrace it, as they have been with PC ordering, said USA Today.
On tap in text ordering:
Papa John's. Consumers wanting to text orders must first visit Papajohns.com and set up a list of four favorite meals. Each then is represented by a cell phone digit that is used to order. Promotions will include TV spots during the National Football League playoffs. Domino's. A mobile Web order service was launched in July and now is available at about 65% of its stores, Rob Weisberg, vice president of precision marketing, told the paper. He wouldn't give mobile's share of sales, but he said it has enabled Domino's to capture one million cell phone numbers, to which it sends promotions about once a month. "Within three years it will be as common to use a text order as it now is to use the phone." Pizza Hut. The chain will launch its "Total Mobile Access" service this month, Bob Kraut, marketing chief, told the paper. Consumers can text orders with their cell phones or use cell phone mobile Web access to order. "It will be a competitive advantage to offer both."In related news, U.S. Bank, MasterCard Worldwide and Nokia have introduced a mobile payments pilot program in Spokane, Wash. (see story in this issue of CSP Daily News). And to learn more about a Boulder, Colo., retailer in a pilot test that allows customers to use text messaging to pay for gasoline and goods, watch out for the February issue of CSP magazine orclick here for a link to CSPTV's video profile.
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