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Customer Experience in the Air

Story of Domino’s- This is the story that dates back to 2009 when the brand image of Domino’s was
completely down the drain. The stock was selling at a rock bottom price of just $6 per share. The store
sales were going down drastically and Domino’s ranked last in the consumer brand preference survey.
All of these things made it very clear that Domino’s was failing real bad. This is when the CEO of the
company back then, Patrick Doyle decided to take a closer look at the situation and soon enough they
found out that there were multiple blog posts saying how bad their pizzas were; some of them said that
the crust of the pizza tasted like cardboard while the other said that the sauce tasted like ketchup. And
this was followed by a series of social media posts which consistently appeared online. The situation was
highly delicate. The stock price of Domino’s was already hitting a rock bottom, the American economy
was still recovering from the 2008 crisis and during this time Dominos , as a publicly listed company was
already waling on a very tight rope.

Critical Evaluation- Now, in this case what any normal company would most likely do is they would
engage in great PR, they would make sure that all the bad reviews are overshadowed and then, in the
background they would make a few changes and may be give out free pizzas, just to get positive
reviews. Or worst case, they would just ignore this altogether thinking that after all in 2009 what could a
blog to do a billion dollar company.

But what Domino’s did was something unique.

Domino’s opted for the most lethal weapon in advertising that nobody ever dares to use, especially
when the company is falling.

And this weapon was brutal honesty.

Patric Doyle, CEO of the company took full responsibility of what was happening and they publically
admitted that they were not doing a good job. In fact, they called upon actually disappointed customer
and got them to taste the pizzas to give them feedback and it was perhaps the most difficult day at work
because every person who walked in just put out some brutal phrases and told them how pathetic their
pizzas were. But the team of Domino’s listened to them very patiently and took notes diligently. But
what followed next was nothing short of an adventure.

The Strategy- For the next 18 months every single chef of Domino’s worked day in and day out without
taking a day off just to try every possible combination of ingredients to make the best pizzas they
possible can and they change their pizzas from top to bottom. And in the process of experimentation
they also realized the fact that in the race of actually providing customers with 30 minutes delivery the
company’s supply chain itself was compromised. The majority of its ingredients were frozen, canned and
even pre-made just so that they could cut down in cost and to make it easier to assemble a pizza in
record time.

So the chefs and the management got together and changed the entire supply chain of the company.
Now, this was an extraordinary move because we are looking at a revamp of processing, inventory,
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storage and transportation that is going to be executed to a chain of more than 4200 stores which are
spread across 9.93 million square kilometers which is practically 3 times the size of India. But to
everyone’s surprise they managed to pull it off within just 18 months.

On top of that they launched a campaign called “Oh yes we did “campaign wherein they documented
their entire journey of how they went from making terrible pizzas to making the best pizzas in the
United States.

In fact, there is also a very sweet video online wherein the head chefs of Domino’s personally go to the
houses of their harshest critics and they surprise them with their new pizza wherein they had
incorporated all of their feedback and each one of these critics was mind blown that the head chef of
Domino’s himself had come down to deliver pizzas. They tasted the pizzas, they loved it and they were
smiling and most of them couldn’t believe that such a huge company would actually take their feedback
so seriously. Apart from this they also included a special section in the website wherein they posted
Facebook posts and tweets of the customers who expressed their delight after having the new pizzas.
This is how Domino’s reinvented itself and did everything in their capacity to get back to making the best
pizza in the United States.

How effective was the strategy?

Well, while the pizza delivery business itself saw a decline of 3% the same store sales of Domino’s
increased by 14.3% which is the largest quarterly increase in the fast food history. The Domino’s stock
rose by 44% in just one month following the campaign and by the end of the quarter, the stock had
reached 75% increase. The campaign has earned 2 billion free media impressions till date and the stock
prices kept going and going for 7 years and rose by 2000% outperforming Apple, Amazon and Netflix.
This is how Domino’s set a benchmark for other brands to learn on how to embrace criticism and how to
turn it into a business opportunity.

What do we learn from the above case?

1- Customer criticism is a part of the business. Although sometimes there might be meaningless
hate, as a business owner it is our responsibility to filter through the chaos and identify the
weakness before it paralyzes your business. In this case, the CEO could have easily ignored the
blogs but because he decided to fix it, Domino’s still exists.
2- The cost of rectifying the mistake is always less than paying for it when it’s already too late. In
this case if Domino’s had considered revamping the supply chain to be a million dollar expense it
would have cost them their entire business. But because they saw it as a million dollar
investment it gave them the opportunity to rise from their ashes.
3- Every brand needs to realize that the future of marketing is not about discounts and fancy
packaging. Although, they are important, at the end of the day the brand needs to connect with
its customers at a personal level and thanks to social media it has become easier now than ever.
The moment the customers realize that they are a part of your journey and the fact that their
contribution actually matters you will go on to achieve an extraordinary level of brand loyalty
which is by far the most powerful asset that you could possess as a brand. And the best way to
actually establish this connect would be to tell a beautiful story.

In this case, it was the “Oh yes we did” campaign.