2.26.2009

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Dear Pizza Hut Corporate Offices,

I have fond memories of Pizza Hut from my childhood. Growing up, it was our "go to" place for family pizza night. My dad would order ahead of time (Super Supreme Pan Pizza with extra cheese) and we'd head to the restaurant, where we would usually be able to sit down, get our beverages and our pizza was on our table in a matter of minutes.

When I was in high school, there was a Pizza Hut right down the street from the school, and it was a popular hangout for Friday night post-football game celebrations.

Now that I'm married with children of my own, I love being able to order a yummy pan pizza and have it delivered to my home, hot and fresh.

Well, I USED to love it.

Living in the Chicago suburbs, we have loads of pizza options, but it seemed we always had a coupon for Pizza Hut, and the kids liked it as well as we did. Earlier this week, I tried to order a pizza and your new pasta. We'd heard such good things about the pasta, and after a long day at work, not cooking was DEFINITELY on my menu.

We hadn't ordered pizza in a few months, but didn't think anything of calling our Pizza Hut restaurant to place the order.

I was told that they could no longer deliver to my address. Ah well, things change. So I called another local Pizza Hut. And another. And another. And another.

Five different Pizza Huts. All the same answer. "Sorry, we can't deliver to your address."

So I went online, only to discover that there are NO Pizza Hut restaurants that deliver to my address. I found this extremely odd, as there are SEVEN of your restaurants within a 9.5 mile radius of my home. THREE of them are under 5.5 miles. ONE of them is less than three miles away!

Sigh.

So I did what any normal, irate customer would do. I ordered from a different restaurant.

Then I called Pizza Hut Customer Service. I told my story and they asked if I'd like a call-back. Sure, why not.

I got a call back the very next day. From the manager of one of the local stores. Who couldn't do anything but take my concerns to the District Manager. Uhm...so why did I call the corporate number? If I'd've thought that the store manager could've helped me, I would've called the store.

His explanation of the Corporate office rationale was that they'd gotten too many complaints from customers about late deliveries and cold pizzas, so they rearranged the delivery areas, cutting out some of the more outlying locations. Which I get. However, when there are THAT many stores who are THAT close to me, I don't understand why they didn't just reassign our location.

Of course the store manager was sympathetic to my plea, as was I to his. Unfortunately, he couldn't solve my problem, and corporate clearly doesn't care that there are about 2500 families in our subdivision area that can't get Pizza Hut delivered. There are at least 1500 more families in surrounding subdivisions (within 2 miles) that are in the same boat.

Pizza Hut must be rolling in dough (a poor, pathetic attempt at humor) for them not to care about these families.

Sincerely,
A Former Pizza Hut Household

4 comments:

C. Beth said...

Oooh, that would really, really annoy me!

I think you should send them that letter. Or at least a link to the blog post.

Unknown said...

I'd love to, but their website is so annoying, since they have this form, rather than an email addy. So much for real customer service!

Carolyn said...

I have fond memories of the X town Pizza Hut.

But our Pizza Hut near us sucks and they are always over an hour delivering to us. We no longer order from there.

Carolyn

Anonymous said...

It's getting harder and harder to understand the corporate business model that turns away customers and then insults them before they go. Great post...I was annoyed for you too.