ANN ARBOR Mich. On the hunt for greater mobile-ordering market share, Domino's Pizza on Wednesday unveiled enhanced versions of its website that have been optimized for users of various smart phones.
Customers using the Apple iPhone, the Palm Pre or phones that run the Google Android operating system need only visit Domino’s mobile website from the browser in one of those phones to be rerouted automatically to the optimized site.
Other restaurant chains, like Burger King, Pizza Hut, Chipotle and Dunkin' Donuts, have developed smart-phone application for placing orders in recent months.
However, Domino’s decided not to develop a smart-phone app, choosing instead to streamline mobile ordering into as few clicks as possible on sites that require no downloading or registration, said Rob Weisberg, vice president of multimedia marketing for the 8,773-unit pizza delivery chain.
“Domino’s mobile ordering is growing at an average rate of 20 percent each month, with the majority of mobile orders coming from iPhone customers,” he said. “These site enhancements cater to the largest segment of our mobile customer base and also provide a platform that can be expanded on for our other mobile customers down the road. We plan on following up with a Blackberry-optimized version in the near future.”
Features on the new mobile platforms include:
-The chain’s Pizza Tracker program, which pops up once the order is placed and lets customers watch real-time updates on the progress of their pizzas, from prep to baking to delivery. More than 75 percent of customers who order pizzas online use Pizza Tracker, Domino’s said.
-Express-ordering options based on demographics and previous orders.
-A visual of the chain’s entire menu and full-functionality ordering.
-Mobile coupons and the ability to browse coupons and offers by the most popular.
-Text message confirmation of orders.
Weisberg said smart-phone apps may be what generate lots of news, but they don’t get downloaded and used nearly enough to justify the expense and time invested in them by businesses and their customers alike.
“The challenge with apps for an organization like Domino’s is they’re a bit like buying a lottery ticket,” Weisberg said. “The percentage of apps that actually get downloaded by the public at large is miniscule. There’s a ‘Field of Dreams’ mentality where if you build it they will come, but in actuality you build them and nobody comes.”
Domino’s developed what Weisberg calls a kind of “sniffer” technology that recognizes what kind of phone or mobile operating system is surfing the brand’s mobile website and automatically launches the appropriate optimized page. The decision to automatically route phones to the special pages and not require users to go through a smart-phone app was made to avoid the long process of finding an app, downloading it, and registering user names and passwords, Weisberg said.
“If you’re an average consumer, you’ll get frustrated in the first 30 seconds,” Weisberg said. “By using this sniffer technology and providing the optimized experience with no downloading, we can provide the bells and whistles without the pain and suffering.”
In addition to people requesting a text message confirming an order, an additional 1 million customers have opted in to receive mobile coupons and offers, allowing the chain to execute “two-click ordering,” Weisberg said.
“The major benefit to the consumer is convenience,” Weisberg said. “If I receive a text message offer, there’s a link that takes me to Dominos.com where the offer is preloaded into the system and I’m done. In the time that I received the message, read it and redeemed it, it could be 30 seconds.”
He added that Domino’s expects about 50 percent of all orders to be placed via digital channels in the near future. The brand has a goal to be the second only to Amazon.com in the number of digital transactions placed.
Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].
