Dominos India Pizza: I hate you like I loved you

I have a long love-and-hate relationship with Dominos. First time I ordered from Dominos was when I recently got married (over a decade ago) and my wife was in the mood of having sandwich with tea. Being winters I did not want to step out to buy the bread, and did not have the courage to say to my loving wife. Of course, wife looks loving in the initial period 🙂

Dominos had recently set-up shop in our area, and I called them to send their lowest priced pizza with a request that from the shop next door, if the delivery boy could also get a packet of bread. The enterprising guy agreed to my request, delivery boy was heavily tipped and there began my love for Dominos.

Since then I do not remember the numerous occasions I would have ordered from Dominos, while I kept trying most other like Pizza Hut, and many others mom and pop joints who kept opening up, no one could satisfy my palate as well as Dominos in the mass scale segment, who kept bringing out Indianised offerings.

Story gets old, and I now have kids, elder one being 11 years now. Pizzas help them celebrate their grades, their birthday, their joys and even sorrows. There is no better incentive for them other than biting into gooey pizzas and Dominos garlic bread. However, I develop further as a foodie and start appreciating finer things, still at home I go with the majority…meaning Dominos.

My kids like any other kid like pizzas but without toppings, so for long Margarita was a preferred choice for them. Then came small pizzas with liquid cheese which was much moister and somehow tasted better than pizzas with mozzarella and my kids developed a taste for them. I was happy as it was pocket friendly too. Sadly, that 30min confirmed delivery is missing as minimum one could order was 4 pizzas and four and above pizzas constituted bulk order.

However I realized that that the staff at Dominos were empowered to take decisions and would offer a small discount or free pizza if they found the customer was not satisfied with the quality of the offerings.

Dominos won the Most Admired QSR of the Year award and many more accreditations, and with the service levels I knew they deserved them much better than anyone else, though I could notice that service levels and quality of pizzas were not as consistent as before. At times one would get very less topping, hardly any cheese, or the cheese and toppings left the major portion of the circumference. And I have studied as much to understand leaving even the smaller outer portion under dressed means a lot of saving for the company.

I shifted my residence in the meantime and though my new abode was equidistant to the two outlets of Dominos, I was forced to choose the new one. This one was a very ill managed store and my complaints became frequent, so much so that I started feeling apologetic to complain but there was no improvement at the service levels. My phone number was marked (perhaps as a creepy customer) and my call was routed to the manager whenever I called. But did it help them in timely delivery or the quality? No. The manager himself acknowledged that they are under staffed and hence cannot help much.

Soon the manager started ignoring my feedback and I had to resort to the website for both orders and complaints. The online complaints at times would initiate immediate response initially but now even those are dying down…and with that my trust on the brand. The love is being replaced by disgust and I am waiting for someone better to come up near my place. Till then I prefer to go for pickup to the old outlet and pick up the pizzas to make my kids smile.

Here are some of the complaints that I logged on Dominos website and otherwise in my last few orders with no satisfactory answer from them:

–         Online pizza order shows how the order is getting ready and when the order is dispatched. However though I got a confirmation within 15 min that the pizza is dispatched but the delivery was made after over an hour. When confirmed I was told that if they do not punch the dispatch within 15min, the order is marked as late. So whom are they fooling…customer or their management?

–         Pizzas were delivered over an hour later: Most managers comeback and say it was only 55 min with no sign of apology

–         I ordered a Pepsi and Fanta each on website, both Pepsi delivered without any explanation. Later when I called I was confirmed that they are running out of Fanta, but does no one needs to confirm before changing my order

–         Pizzas were soggy & cold: No explanation

–         Pizzas hardly had any cheese or topping: No explanation

–         Delivery boy did not get Oregano or Chilly flakes: I was told he will get it now, but how am I supposed to eat those cold pizzas when the return trip by delivery boy was made after 40min?

–         There was no spoon served with Choco lava cake

–         No napkins given

–         Though one can order 5 or 6 small pizzas on phone, but if you are ordering on the net, it only gives option to order in multiple of four. What convenience!

So till Dominos improves, I agree with my 5 year kid, ‘Domi-does-not-knows’.