In Which I Once More Get Cranky About Pizza
It’s been a while since I did a post where I got cranky about a customer service issue…I guess I’ve been treated pretty well the last many months. Tonight, though, a pizza company (why is it always a pizza company?) got on my tits and I had to fire off a sarcastic email alerting them to the fact that we are now in a permanent blood feud. Here’s the text of my email:
“Hi, Extreme Pizza:
My wife and I were enticed tonight to try you out because of a bit of direct mail advertising promising a "FREE! medium pizza with the purchase of ANY drink." I called your College Ave. (Berkeley) location, and spent a minute or two on hold. Then, when the customer service person picked up again, I had to go through the usual rigamarole of name, address, phone number, and so on before finally placing my order. I asked for my free medium "Kickin' Chicken" with the purchase of a Dr. Pepper. That's when the customer service person told me I had to order $10 worth of stuff to get the pizza delivered.
I know, I know, I should have read the fine print. I cop to that. It was right there in white and black. But you know as well as I do that nobody ever reads the fine print, especially tired and hungry people who just want somebody to bring them an even halfway warm pizza so they can gather strength to make it through the rest of the evening before collapsing into a stupour and starting the whole thing over again the next day. You also know as well as I do that most people, having already invested five precious minutes of their life getting through with the dialing, the time on hold, and the preliminary ordering information, will at that point say "oh well" and order $10 worth of stuff anyway, just to get it over with. You also know as well as I do - better, apparently - that a great big "FREE!" plastered over a little tiny "well, not really," is a great way to rope chumps in. What you might not know is that there's a word in the English language tailor made for this kind of advertising, and that word is "sleazy."
What burns me up about this is I would have been perfectly happy to pay the $10 minimum - or, for that matter, the price of a pizza - if I hadn't come out of the thing feeling so totally misled. I'm fairly sure I would have ended up ordering regularly from you - instead, I'm resolved now to never give you a single dollar as long as we both shall live. I'm assuming here - because I have a charitable nature - that the mission statement of your marketing department, at least in regard to this particular promotion, is "Let's try to alienate potential customers for all eternity." If that's the case, it's bang-up job! Way to go!
Best regards,
PDD”
“Hi, Extreme Pizza:
My wife and I were enticed tonight to try you out because of a bit of direct mail advertising promising a "FREE! medium pizza with the purchase of ANY drink." I called your College Ave. (Berkeley) location, and spent a minute or two on hold. Then, when the customer service person picked up again, I had to go through the usual rigamarole of name, address, phone number, and so on before finally placing my order. I asked for my free medium "Kickin' Chicken" with the purchase of a Dr. Pepper. That's when the customer service person told me I had to order $10 worth of stuff to get the pizza delivered.
I know, I know, I should have read the fine print. I cop to that. It was right there in white and black. But you know as well as I do that nobody ever reads the fine print, especially tired and hungry people who just want somebody to bring them an even halfway warm pizza so they can gather strength to make it through the rest of the evening before collapsing into a stupour and starting the whole thing over again the next day. You also know as well as I do that most people, having already invested five precious minutes of their life getting through with the dialing, the time on hold, and the preliminary ordering information, will at that point say "oh well" and order $10 worth of stuff anyway, just to get it over with. You also know as well as I do - better, apparently - that a great big "FREE!" plastered over a little tiny "well, not really," is a great way to rope chumps in. What you might not know is that there's a word in the English language tailor made for this kind of advertising, and that word is "sleazy."
What burns me up about this is I would have been perfectly happy to pay the $10 minimum - or, for that matter, the price of a pizza - if I hadn't come out of the thing feeling so totally misled. I'm fairly sure I would have ended up ordering regularly from you - instead, I'm resolved now to never give you a single dollar as long as we both shall live. I'm assuming here - because I have a charitable nature - that the mission statement of your marketing department, at least in regard to this particular promotion, is "Let's try to alienate potential customers for all eternity." If that's the case, it's bang-up job! Way to go!
Best regards,
PDD”
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 10:23 PM
2 Comments:
Way to rip the Pizza Company a new asshole, Papa Dog! Good job!
That stuff really burns me up, too...tell me the truth - the WHOLE truth, and not those little fine print ideas.
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