Text ordering from Pizza Hut not quite what I had in mind

I'm backing off slightly on my high opinion of Pizza Hut and their integration of online ordering and text messaging technologies. Saturday night I texted a pizza order to Pizza Hut. Part because I wanted to try out the text messaging technology and part because I was hungry for pizza again.

Remembering, or so I thought, how to place the order from the instructions on my previous online order, I texted the word "HALFPEP" to the Pizza Hut text messaging number from my mobile phone. Within seconds I received a text message reply which I thought was going to be my order confirmation. Instead, it was a message letting me know it didn't understand my request along with a series of acceptable request words.

As soon as I saw the request word "ORDER" I remembered that I was supposed to include that word with my order request. I also remembered that you can abbreviate "ORDER" as just "O" so I texted "O HALFPEP" back to Pizza Hut. This time it worked. I immediately received another text reply indicating that my order had been received and that it would be delivered at 6:23 PM. It also let me know that the total would be $16.99 which I could expect to pay with cash. That last part was a surprise to me. I paid the first time with a credit card and expected that my follow-up orders would be tied to the same credit card. No such luck.

Here's where it gets interesting

I told my wife that our order was on its way and what the total would be at which point she reminded me we had coupons from the last order we placed. I wondered how I was going to apply a coupon to a text order. Would I just give the guy the coupon at the door when the pizza is delivered? Better not take any chances I thought so I called the phone number for my local Pizza Hut store which was also supplied to me in my confirmation text message.

When they answered, I explained that I had a coupon for pretty much the identical order I just placed via text message except the coupon has a large pizza listed and I ordered a medium. I asked if it was too late to switch to a large pizza since the coupon price was $12.99, $4 cheaper than my original order. The guy on the other end of the phone thought about it for a minute and then asked to put me on hold.

When he came back, he told me my order was changed, the coupon was applied and that my new total was $18.07. That's right, my new total was now $1.08 more expensive than when I started. When I asked how the new price could be higher than my original order, here's the response I received. "Well, your online order total didn't include tax and delivery charge, our total here does. That's the difference." I didn't want to take the time to explain that technically this was a text message order, not an online order. But I did ask for confirmation that the order total on my text message is not really the total charge that I will pay at the door. "That's right." he replied.

Never use the Internet? Are you for real?

Here's the real kicker. He went on to say, "That's why you should never order over the Internet. The Internet orders always get screwed up and cause all kinds of problems. You should just call our store."

Since I was hungry and didn't feel like getting any deeper into the conversation I bit my tongue and decided just to go about my business and wait for the delivery. At 6:21 PM (not bad, 2 minutes off the estimated time even with the order change), the pizza delivery man showed up at my front door.

A few minutes later my family and I were enjoying a large thin n' crispy, half pepperoni, half sausage pizza, a personal pan-sized pepperoni and sausage pizza and an order of chicken wings. Not bad considering the large thin n' crispy pizza was the only part of the order that I actually ordered. My breadsticks were M.I.A. and apparently so was someone else's personal pan pizza and chicken wings.

I guess no matter how fancy the technology, it still comes down to people making pizza. And those people screwed up my order big time. I did call to complain and settled for a $5.00 credit when told it would be 45 minutes before I received my breadsticks.

Great, now I have to order pizza again.