Papa John's Customer Service - Good Will?

     Here is an experience I had recently, It may be trivial, but the days of customer good will are declining, and I want to see what the response will be from Papa John's will be, since they have a great feedback form on their website under "customer service".

     I wanted to take advantage of the Papa John's Pizza $5.99 1 topping carry-out special. So I walked in and ordered a large sausage with "light sauce" as my wife prefers Domono's. But if I am buying I prefer Papa John's. So I went into a different store to shop for the 15 minutes. I returned and it was done, so I grabbed it and drove home. When I opened the box, my wife pointed out that it was not "light sauce" and proceeded to scrape the toppings off and then get rid of all the sauce and tried to put the sausage and cheese back on. I then looked at the box and and it said "extra sauce". And in my house that is like culinary malpractice. So I called and talked to the guy in charge and he said he thought I said "extra sauce". He did say that he would make me a new "correct" pizza if I brought the bad one back with only 1 piece missing.
     Well I was already at the dinner table and my wife and I each had a piece on our plates that was almost eaten, I thought that request was rather odd. And since I had driven there and was already home, I really did not feel like going back, so I asked him if he could just take my name and in a couple days, when I felt like pizza again, I could stop in and get another $5.99 pizza. He said that was not an option and offered to make me a replacement pizza right now if I brought the other one back. I reminded him that a couple years ago that the manager screwed up one of my pizzas, and made me another pizza, let me keep both and gave them both to me for free! That was a great day in my life and gave me a great feeling about Papa John's. So I said "screw that" and hung up and I guess I was going to do Pizza Hut's $10 deal or Domino's from now on.
     Still being a little upset, and watching my wife struggle in the sauce pool, I decided to call back and see if he would deliver me another (free) pizza to my house. He agreed, so I asked if I could change it to pepperoni instead of sausage (per my wife) and he said "no" he could only replace the original order (sausage) - and to make sure there was not more than 1 piece missing. In about 20 minutes, a delivery kid came with the new "light sauce" sausage pizza. He opened the old pizza box to inspect it - well we smushed the remaining pieces around to look like a total of only 1 piece was missing, and I guessed it passed the inspection because he gave us the new pizza. And I have to admit, it was fresh and good and "light sauce".      

     My point is, I think that the "1 piece missing" rule is ridiculous. And it was a blatant error on their part to put extra sauce on a pizza ordered with light sauce, and in that case, to make the customer happy, all bets are off. I remember somewhere in the conversation, that the manager said "it comes out of my pocket", if that is the case, there is something wrong with the Papa John's system - making the manager financially responsible for maintaining customer good will?

I will update this blog with whatever the response is from Papa John's

     UPDATE September 8, 2012: I have received nothing back from Papa John's - I spent about an hour preparing and writing what I thought was a polite and detailed submission on their feedback page and NOTHING. I have lost confidence in the company - another company that got too big for it's britches. It's too bad too, I really used to like Papa John's...