Pizza Today - June 2020 - 14

MAN ON THE STREET

SCOT T WIENER

Delivery
Learning by opening new doors

've ordered pizza 534 times in the
past four weeks. That's not hyperbole; I've literally gone through the
motions of placing an order for pizza
delivery 534 times over the course of
one month. That's not to say I've eaten
any of it; the orders have all been sent
to hospitals across the country as part of
Slice Out Hunger's Pizza Vs. Pandemic
campaign. Despite being quite possibly
the world's only pizza box collector,
I never order pizza to be delivered to
my home. Ever. My normal life has me
buying pizza at pizzerias every day, but
this situation of placing orders online
and over the phone has presented a real
educational opportunity for me. Here's
what I've learned.

I like online ordering way more than
ordering by phone. It's so much faster
and more accurate. You better believe I
ran into some errors over the course of
placing so many orders, but those problems were solved quickly and with less
frustration when there was a clear paper
trail to follow. When the order was
placed online, I didn't hear "we wrote it
down correctly, you must have ordered
the wrong item" or "I'm positive I heard
you say pepperoni and not peppers and
onions." There was just, "Oh now I see,
we didn't notice that request when we
made the pizza. We'll just make it again
for you." When the mistake was mine,
the evidence was clear. No misremembering and no miscommunication.

One thing I did miss about ordering by phone is the opportunity to ask
questions and request modifications
that aren't available through an online
portal. You can tweak as many things
as you want, customers will always find
something you left out. An operator can give an employee live updates
about menu options, but some don't
have time to constantly update the
menu on an online platform (or even
worse, multiple platforms). It's easy to
forget about the online stuff because
it's invisible. It's not standing in front
of you every day, in perfect earshot
for you to instantly pick up on the
mistakes of a phone operator.
In the process of placing all these
orders, I find myself dreading the
ones that need to be placed by phone
because they take so much longer than
orders placed online. Today I hit a
busy signal four times before getting
through. Last week the genius who
answered the phone placed me on
"hold," put the phone on the counter,
then walked away and forgot about
me. I tried calling out to the staff only
to hear their confused response as they
tried to figure out where the tiny voice
was coming from. If two pizzerias in
my town were identical besides their
ordering options, I'd definitely go with
the one that offered online purchasing.
Realize that my strong preference
has been a hard pill for an analog guy
like me to swallow. I like talking to
people. I like making phone calls. I
resisted text messaging for YEARS
before finally acquiescing to the
demands of modernity. But delivery
pizza is a comfort food and it's hard to
be comfortable when wasting away on
hold or arguing with a manager after
the wrong pizza arrives at the doorstep. ■

SCOTT WIENER is the founder of Scott's Pizza Tours in New York City and SliceOutHunger.org Instagram: @scottspizzatours

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Pizza Today - June 2020

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