Way to go making a simple task way harder than it had to be!

Last week I received an email from Pizza Hut including a $5 off coupon if I ordered a pizza online. When I logged in it told me that coupon was not available in my area. Still craving Pizza Hut pizza I searched for a different coupon that worked in my area and found one. I proceeded to create my pizza.

Once finished and after entering my credit card information I placed my order. The website told me to “please wait, do not refresh or close your browser while we send your order to your local Pizza Hut”. 4 minutes went by, then the page went blank.

Not knowing whether my order made it to my local Pizza Hut, I looked up their number and called. 30 rings and no answer. I double checked their number and called a few minutes later. 20 rings later a Pizza Hut employee answered. I asked if my online order had been sent to them. He said no. I asked if I could place an order, to which he replied “I’m going to put you on hold and go to a different computer”.

While on hold I again went to Pizza Hut’s website to check my order status. When I got to Pizza Hut’s website I could not find where to log in. I browsed around the site looking, but found nothing. At the top it showed a country selection drop down menu. Thinking it may not allow logon until it knows my country, I opened the menu. Very carefully I searched for anything which might indicate where I was. Nothing. No “US”, “U.S.”, “USA”, “U.S.A.”, “America”, “United States”, “United States of America”, “Land of the free”. Nothing.

After 5 minutes on hold a different employee picked up “This is Pizza Hut may I help you?” I guess he didn’t know I was waiting. Again I asked if they received my online order. They had not.

After asking me if I would like to place an order, I said “No thanks, I’ve been trying to order a pizza from Pizza Hut for nearly an hour without success, so I think I’ll get a pizza somewhere else”. This was at almost 8 PM. (If your curious how well Pizza Hut’s website is at collecting feedback, consider the fact that I couldn’t type my entire experience in their description box due to a 520 character limit.)

At roughly 8 PM I ordered a pizza from a great local pizza joint in town and within 45 minutes was devouring the sweet goodness that is beer and pizza. Then at 10:45 PM Pizza Hut emailed me to let me know my order had not been sent.

Dear Pizza Hut,
You need to review your priorities. It seems you’ve lost touch with the most important part of your business: SELLING PIZZA. When you make what should be a simple process turn into an act more difficult than filling out a health insurance application, you’ve done something wrong.

Go back and try again.

Until then I know of plenty of wonderful pizza places that make ordering pizza an enjoyable experience.