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My local pizza place in Seattle has moved the technology the other way. Here’s the dialog when I call. “Pagliacci Pizza, how can I help you?” “I’d like to orde

by ioman 5y ago

My local pizza place in Seattle has moved the technology the other way. Here’s the dialog when I call. “Pagliacci Pizza, how can I help you?” “I’d like to order a pizza” “Sure thing. Is this John Smith?” “Yes” “Do you still live at 1234 Main Street” “Yes” “Would you like to order the same thing you did last time?” “Yes” “Ok, it’ll be there in 20 minutes” Even better, while you talk to the store you called, the order goes into some sort of pizza load balancer and gives the order to the least busy store with a good drive time to your house. I’d seriously like to buy/have a beer for/with whoever designed it.

sdoering 5y ago
Wow. This sounds like an interesting project. Would love to share some coffee with the designer as well. And in hindsight obvious in times of my phone transmitting my number to the other party.
mcntsh 5y ago
I'm not sure if Uber Eats/DoorDash are starting to force businesses to stop taking phone orders, but the last few times I tried to call and place an order I was told I need to do it from their website (which was an Uber Eats POS). Which sucks because then you pay the app fees on top of everything.
MAGZine 5y ago
Jet's Pizza in New York allows you to text in an order, including saying "last order". ... unfortunately its then hooked up to a bad webui to review/complete the order, and their text to data interface is bad at trying to guess what you want unless if you specify things exactly how they're written in the menu.
fragmede 5y ago
That's just calling a VoIP line so the caller ID comes up on a computer and loads the relevant entry from the CRM including order history, run by an experienced user.
- xeromal 5y ago
  For a pizza user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.
- remir 5y ago
  This kind of thing is relatively easy to do on contact center solutions like Genesys.
- acdha 5y ago
  “Just” probably isn’t the right word: the tools have become easier but it still takes care to integrate all of the pieces to a smooth user experience. For example, no financial institution I’ve ever used has managed to link things that well despite orders of magnitude greater budget.
  - tjoff 5y ago
    >.[..] despite orders of magnitude greater budget. That's likely to be the problem. Also, a financial institution has vastly more complex interactions than "same as last time?"
    - acdha 5y ago
      Sure, but they can’t even pass my phone or account number around. I’m not saying that the two businesses are comparable in complexity, only that nothing easy happens without someone behind the scenes working on the user experience.
- macksd 5y ago
  You say "just" because the technology for doing this isn't novel. It doesn't feel like it's "just" anything when so few businesses bother to even put that much effort towards a good customer experience.
tjoff 5y ago
Sounds good, but "the order goes into some sort of pizza load balancer and gives the order to the least busy store with a good drive time to your house" seems to be optimizing only for fast delivery. Which might, or might definitely not be the highest priority to me.
- aembleton 5y ago
  If its a chain - where the quality is roughly uniform, what other metric would you prioritise by?
- fortydegrees 5y ago
  You might not be the person the software was being sold to ;)
ratww 5y ago
In Brazil a lot of people moved to use WhatsApp for ordering, which keeps the history and requires the company to use nothing but a free app everyone already has. At worse the pizza place has to ask for the address again if they're in a rush. I find it a quite clever solution.
thorwawayrus53 5y ago
> I’d seriously like to buy/have a beer for/with whoever designed it. I feel this.
sdnas211 5y ago
My local pizza place (not a chain) does this. But manually. If you call they will ask if you want the usual. Then that is it. No confirmation of address, price, anything. I can literally call and say "I want a pizza" and unless I want different toppings, that is the whole process.
lamby 5y ago
> “Would you like to order the same thing you did last time?” The next iteration of this clearly for them to call you when you are likely to be hungry (and/or drunk) and ask you this. :)
thehappypm 5y ago
Best pizza in Seattle, too.

by ioman 5y ago

sdoering 5y ago

Wow. This sounds like an interesting project. Would love to share some coffee with the designer as well. And in hindsight obvious in times of my phone transmitting my number to the other party.

mcntsh 5y ago

I'm not sure if Uber Eats/DoorDash are starting to force businesses to stop taking phone orders, but the last few times I tried to call and place an order I was told I need to do it from their website (which was an Uber Eats POS). Which sucks because then you pay the app fees on top of everything.

MAGZine 5y ago

Jet's Pizza in New York allows you to text in an order, including saying "last order". ... unfortunately its then hooked up to a bad webui to review/complete the order, and their text to data interface is bad at trying to guess what you want unless if you specify things exactly how they're written in the menu.

fragmede 5y ago

That's just calling a VoIP line so the caller ID comes up on a computer and loads the relevant entry from the CRM including order history, run by an experienced user.

xeromal 5y ago
For a pizza user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.
remir 5y ago
This kind of thing is relatively easy to do on contact center solutions like Genesys.
acdha 5y ago
“Just” probably isn’t the right word: the tools have become easier but it still takes care to integrate all of the pieces to a smooth user experience. For example, no financial institution I’ve ever used has managed to link things that well despite orders of magnitude greater budget.
- tjoff 5y ago
  >.[..] despite orders of magnitude greater budget. That's likely to be the problem. Also, a financial institution has vastly more complex interactions than "same as last time?"
  - acdha 5y ago
    Sure, but they can’t even pass my phone or account number around. I’m not saying that the two businesses are comparable in complexity, only that nothing easy happens without someone behind the scenes working on the user experience.
macksd 5y ago
You say "just" because the technology for doing this isn't novel. It doesn't feel like it's "just" anything when so few businesses bother to even put that much effort towards a good customer experience.

tjoff 5y ago

Sounds good, but "the order goes into some sort of pizza load balancer and gives the order to the least busy store with a good drive time to your house" seems to be optimizing only for fast delivery. Which might, or might definitely not be the highest priority to me.

aembleton 5y ago
If its a chain - where the quality is roughly uniform, what other metric would you prioritise by?
fortydegrees 5y ago
You might not be the person the software was being sold to ;)

ratww 5y ago

In Brazil a lot of people moved to use WhatsApp for ordering, which keeps the history and requires the company to use nothing but a free app everyone already has. At worse the pizza place has to ask for the address again if they're in a rush. I find it a quite clever solution.

thorwawayrus53 5y ago

> I’d seriously like to buy/have a beer for/with whoever designed it. I feel this.

sdnas211 5y ago

My local pizza place (not a chain) does this. But manually. If you call they will ask if you want the usual. Then that is it. No confirmation of address, price, anything. I can literally call and say "I want a pizza" and unless I want different toppings, that is the whole process.

lamby 5y ago

> “Would you like to order the same thing you did last time?” The next iteration of this clearly for them to call you when you are likely to be hungry (and/or drunk) and ask you this. :)

thehappypm 5y ago

Best pizza in Seattle, too.