The year was 1999. Yes, we used to order pizza by calling the store directly and the average hold time was 45 minutes, especially on Friday evenings. While on hold, if the call got dropped then the customer had to start all over again. Finally, when the time came to talk to the order taker, most customers did not have a menu in front of them and relied on either past orders or suggestions from the order taker. All pizza companies had similar long wait times and some were looking at how to make the wait time more “pleasant” by adding better on-hold music, some were thinking of going to a national 1-800 call center to take the orders. They were all great ideas but it only made a really bad situation a tad less bad. At Papa John’s, we drew an illustration to show how customers felt. They felt anxious,...
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