02.04.2008
Track your pizza from order to door
Ordering pizza got a whole lot fancier just in time for one the busiest day of the year.
Customers ordering online at Domino’s Pizza, one of the nation’s leading pizza chains, can now track their deliveries from the moment the order is placed through the ringing of the doorbell.
“We don’t install small GPS locators in the dough,” spokesman Tim McIntyre said.
Instead, the chain developed its tracking system using technology in place at restaurants.
An online order is placed into a restaurant’s computer system. As it moves through the pizza-making process, employees mark their portion of the order complete.
Once the order is on the road, the customer will even know the name of the driver bringing it to the door. Customers are tied into the system using their phone numbers.
The tracking is only for customers ordering online and not for those placing an order by phone.
The new system saw its first real test Sunday during the Super Bowl. Domino’s expected to deliver 1.2 million pizzas, a 30 percent increase from an average Sunday, McIntyre said.
The vast majority of the pies on Super Bowl Sundays are ordered between just before kickoff and halftime, a couple of hours later.
Nelson Bridgewater, general manager of a Domino’s west of Richmond said the system should eliminate some of the anxiety customers feel waiting for their pizza to arrive.
“After about 40 minutes, they start to wonder where their dinner is and then they call us,” Bridgewater said. “I think this is a great way for our customers to see how busy we are.”
An added advantage is that when employees don’t have to answer, more of them are making pizzas, he said.
“[The tracking system] makes everything faster,” Bridgewater said.