The Pin Drop Pizza from Domino’s

Pinpoint Delivery is the latest offering from Domino’s Pizza – which now can deliver pizza anywhere to a pin on the map! So customers can now get their order delivered at an infinite number of ‘dynamically created hyper local-spots’ – that could be anywhere from parks or beaches or just anywhere at all! Customers can see the delivery driver’s GPS location and also get text alerts about their orders.

Domino’s Pizza calls itself a tech chain that happens to sell pizza and is known to leverage the power of technology to improve its services. Now it has used Google Maps to deliver its pizzas to customers at places that don’t have addresses- like the inside of a park, sitting on the stands at a baseball ground or near the sea, at the beach.

Customers can set their location on the app, by dropping a pin. The only thing is that the drop off point must be inside a store’s delivery zone. The app will pick up the latitude and longitude coordinates of the customer's location and will fix the best spot for delivery – a place where the driver can pull up and drop off the pizza. Customers have four minutes to meet their driver. There is no extra cost for Pinpoint delivery.

Pinpoint is like an extension of Domino's Hotspots, which it introduced in April 2018, where pizzas are delivered to outdoor spots like a stadium - but where it still needs an address.

The food delivery business which saw a massive surge during the pandemic, is seeing a drop now mainly in the frequency of orders. In May, delivery orders fell 8% compared to a year ago, according to market research firm Circana, formerly The NPD Group. Domino’s Pizza recently reported a net income of $104.8m for Q1 2023, a jump of 15% compared to $90.96m a year ago.

Wendy’s is another brand that is trying to shake things up, is Wendy's. They announced recently that they were partnering with the startup Pipedream to introduce a hybrid delivery/pickup system using robot-powered underground tunnels to deliver food to customers' cars.

True to what Domino’s thinks of itself, Domino’s latest announcement has to do with tech and not pizza! Some time ago, Domino’s launched an app on Apple’s CarPlay giving customers the option of ordering pizza from their vehicles!

This is a wonderful example of how a brand uses technology to make their customers’ lives easier, by focusing on the one thing that makes all the difference in today’s crazy world – convenience. A great customer experience is emerging as a key differentiator among brands who are all fighting for the attention of the same audiences.

While price and the quality of goods matter, convenience is what many customers look for. In fact, customers are even happy to pay a premium if that will get them some great service from brands. Many people today think that the experience that the brand offers customers is as important as the products and services they offer.

Offering customers great customer experiences is good for brands – it increases satisfaction, increases retention, wins new customers, gets the business higher order rates and a higher return on spend. The flip side is that if customers see something as a bad customer experience, it can have a catastrophic impact on the brand. Speaking of which, it is very important to remember that customers have really high standards. They don’t just compare experiences between similar brands – one jewelry store with another – they just compare experiences that they have had with brands!

Customer experience has moved from just placing importance on customer service. It is a lot more than that. It has a lot to do with the entire experience a customer has with a brand – small and big interactions, messaging, culture – just about anything at all. And brands need to step up and offer great experiences to their customers or they will surely lose out.

Brands need to make real changes in the system to make great customer experiences happen. Just paying lip service to it, won’t cut it at all. Brands must do a lot more than just talk about it. They have to actually get their hands dirty and do what it takes to change. They must start making investments of time and resources in harnessing the change that people, processes, and technology can bring, to deliver the convenience and personalized experiences that customers expect.

And Domino’s is well-known for this.