Biggest complaints about Domino’s pizza revealed as the fast food giant promises to do better

DOMINO’S has released a list of its customers’ biggest gripes, as the fast food giant promises to “do better”.

‘Why doesn’t my pizza look like that?’ Domino's customers want to know.

DOMINO’S revealed its customers’ biggest gripes, as the fast food giant promises to “do better”.

After years spent focusing efforts on cutting down delivery times and experimenting with robots and drones, the company has been hit with a deluge of complaints about food quality.

The top five complaints Domino’s has received are missing garlic breads, uneven pizza slices, poorly distributed pepperoni, order mix-ups and poor customer service, the company revealed on Monday while unveiling a campaign to repair its image.

It comes as rival Pizza Hut, beefed up by its new private equity owner thanks to the acquisition of Eagle Boys, rolls out its expansion plans with new stores and a possible return of dine-in restaurants.

‘Very unhappy with the amount of pepperoni on this pizza’.

Domino’s Facebook page has long been littered with tales of disappointment from customers whose pizzas showed up with key ingredients missing, or unwanted toppings added — such as pieces on plastic or cardboard.

Recent examples include a woman who reported being violently ill after her ordering a gluten-free base but receiving a pizza made with an ordinary base, while a man said the “oven roasted” chicken on his pizza was “pink inside, slimy, barely warm”. Another reportedly received a barbecue chicken pizza that was missing the all-important barbecue sauce.

Scrimping on pepperoni was a major sore point, with one disgruntled customer writing: “Would be good if the pizza looked even slightly similar to your advertisement. We ordered seven pizzas yesterday, two being the new mega pepperoni ... There was nothing ‘mega’ about it at all. They actually had less pepperoni than when we used to order the normal ones.”

Now the company has launched into damage control mode, with a national television advertising campaign aimed at repairing its image.

“At Domino’s we always aim to do better so when we get feedback like ‘that’s pretty poor coverage’, we respond,” franchisee Leroy Day promises earnestly as the camera zooms in on a perfect pepperoni pizza; “If your pizza isn’t made to this standard we’ll replace and refund it, because we care.”

Nick Knight, Domino’s chief executive for Australia and New Zealand, said the campaign recognised that customers valued more than just delivery speed.

“We know it can be frustrating if we forget a garlic bread, or the pepperoni on a meatlovers pizza is not evenly spread, because while we sell millions of pizzas each year, our customers tell us every pizza, and every slice, needs to be perfect,” Mr Knight said.

“‘Slow where it matters, fast where it counts,’ has long been the mantra of Domino’s, and we recognise that over time errors have been made and attention to detail has wavered.

“It is not acceptable that our customers receive a less-than-perfect pizza, that items from the order are wrong or missing, or pizza slices are unevenly cut or topped.”

He said the insights had come from focus groups Domino’s has held with customers, who emphasised that they wanted “every product in every meal to meet their expectations”.

“When we make a mistake, they want it fixed as quickly as possible — and we will,” he vowed, adding: “100 per cent customer satisfaction is our goal”.

Domino’s has invested in a new customer care team to monitor and resolve complaints “as quickly as possible”, and each of its 600 Australian stores will close for an hour this weekend so that franchisees and staff can be trained in quality control.

[e-mail]