Hungry Howies Pizza – Where is the coupon?
Last night my daughter had a friend over which means pizza for dinner. (Don’t all of you try to be my daughter’s friend at once now.)
I have a routine. I usually go online to compare several pizza places we like and buy the deal that fits best. I start with Hungry Howies Pizza.
They used to have coupons that were very easy to find. However, this time they wasted my time and I bought a pizza from a competitor after getting frustrated with their website. This is why you need to really look at how people use your website. I can imagine that their online marketer is pleased. The site looks nice enough and now it has the feature all the franchisees probably were asking for. Different coupons by store.
Here is the problem – and it is costing them money – and you may be doing a similar mistakes.
- They’d taught me where to go in the past for online coupons. After I have done it once or twice, I have no need to read the text on the page, I just click and find them. It is very unpleasant to need to figure things out after you already learned it once.
- They falsely promise coupons many times – leading me through a maze that never did produce a coupon. I was told to “Click the coupon below” and it was blank. They are time thieves! I just want to save a dollar on a pizza and precious minutes of my life were slipping away.
- They present pretend coupons – things that look like they will lead to coupons but do not produce any.
I did some quick screen shots below so you can see what I mean. I do not want to bash Hungry Howies Pizza, but I think writing something like this illustrates what you might be doing wrong on your website as well. And maybe Hungry Howies Marketing Team will visit and get some free consulting as well.
Twice now I have gone to their site and not been able to find coupons. The first time I gave up really fast and ordered somewhere else, the second time I hunted more, gave up and ordered from somewhere else.
I know that we can argue that if I loved their pizza I would not worry about it. But pizza is a commodity and I do not order it frequently and I do not have a favorite. If they have lost 2 orders from me in the last 3 months, how many are they loosing all together? They may be blaming a bad economy for something that has more to do with a bad website.
Lead Generation Resources
No pizza isn’t a commodity.
That’s like saying all marketing and branding blogs are too – and there’s far more of them than there are pizza restaurants.
While HH’s pizza may be a commodity simply because they treat themselves like one – deep discounts, no UVP being communicated, a “me too” approach to branding, etc… doesn’t mean all pizza is. I would have thought you of all people Ron would have realized that.
All it simply means is that you like cheap pizza. And while that is perfectly fine, not everyone feels like you do. In fact, there are markets all over the country where pizza “fanatics” would stone you for saying such a thing (no pun intended).
The pizza industry has shot themselves in the head with discounting but this is an historical problem that is fast becoming an economic nightmare for operators. The days are numbered wherein you will be able to get those $5 pizzas. A quality product that can feed multiple people has far more value than that.
You are absolutely correct. I expect a discount – and do not ever buy full price pizza for takeout or delivery.
But remember, I am the consumer here. I have been trained by the pizza industry to expect these things. Sure there are great pizza’s that defy the commodity tag, but when I am feeding hungry 11 year olds, I am looking for a good deal.
Personally, I do not eat bread products unless it is a special occasion, so I am more likely to pay a premium for fish or a nice salad. But that is just me.
This post is more a study in website problems, not the pizza industry (or branding blogs)
Thanks for posting – I did not expect to hit a nerve with anyone about pizza.
They lost my business a few moments ago when I ran into the same problem. I kept looking for a coupon and Google took me to this site, where I found your post. I found their website quite annoying!
Ron,
I just want to give some insight into the frustration you have experienced at the Hungry Howies Website in reference to coupons. The coupons offer section is controlled by local store management. However, they did not recieve the ability to post coupons on the corporate website until January of 2009. Being as which this is currently a new capability for stores, many have not yet posted offers to their particular store location. Perhaps a call to your local store will prompt them to “Get with the program.” There is no excuse for not taking advantage of all opportunities to reach out to your customers but “It is what it is”.
Thanks Pizza Guy.
Not sure where you rank in the organization, but let me say that from a technical viewpoint, this should default to a coupon. Don’t blame the store owners – not acting quickly is obviously what would happen.
This is 100% the fault of the programmer or web developer and they have cost the company many thousands of dollars.
It is about this hard:
IF CouponExists Then
Print Coupon
Else
Print Default Coupon
End If
There is no excusing not planning for this. It is very unprofessional.
I think you hit the nail on the head! So many businesses treat their website as an afterthought. They are often out of date and don’t do much to create any emotional connections with their customers. Guess what? We’re all online! Websites are key!
Encountered same issue a year later – however… upon getting to their online ordering system, there are numerous coupons surrounded their order selection screen.