If they are 10 minutes *over* the 30 minutes? then that clearly makes this a "40 minute guarantee" as nothing happens at "30 minutes" in any way does it?
Just be honest!
Or is it that 10 minutes after order? Or 10 minutes after forecast? They are saying one hour to me now, so is it magically now a 70 minute guarantee?
A "30 minute guarantee" would have pay out for exceeding "30 minutes". Simple as that. Not "10 minutes on top of that". I mean, why not a "2 hours late" clause on top, it is meaningless.
The guarantee is clearly a "40 minutes" guarantee, as no recourse or penalty for delivery within 40 minutes and there is some (£10 off next order) when beyond 40 minutes.
This is bullshit - be honest. I think I'll file a complaint to ASA (like that matters)...
P.S. to be a tad less ranty!
The "30 minutes" is not meaningful in any way but as the headline. If they had a choice of customer A in 30 minutes and customer B over 40 minutes, or alternatively both A and B over 30 but within 40, they would choose the latter. They would be negligent not to. Only the "40 minutes" actually matters to anyone. The break down of that as "30+10" is purely marketing hype and IMHO dishonest, sorry.
Where does it say that it's a "30 minute guarantee"?
ReplyDeleteIsn't that the whole point? It is so ambiguous that it is total marketing BS.
DeleteIt's worded like that because they aim to deliver within 30 minutes, not 40 minutes. If they're 10 minutes over that they will consder compensation in the form of a £10 discount code. The scheme is clearly explained in their T&Cs.
ReplyDeleteIf they aim to deliver within 30 mins then if they are 1 minute late then I expect a discount. Having a "grace" period of 10 mins makes it a 40 minute guarantee - End of debate.
DeleteI thought companies abandoned this back in the early 90s as it encouraged their drivers to make bad driving decisions in the name of speed.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't punish the drivers for lateness and instead just take it as a (I'll have to pay out 3-5% of the time) risk then this problem is surely mitigated?
DeleteI'm really struggling to see the issue here.
ReplyDeleteThey aim to deliver within 30 minutes, and if they fail by more than a certain margin then you get compensation. I think that's clear and helpful (more helpful than if it just said 40 minutes, in which case I'd wrongly assume they were slow and might choose another pizza company who say nothing at all about delivery time).
As a customer I don't want to be told the 95th percentile delivery time, since it's unlikely I'll suffer that fate. I want to be told the 70th percentile which is on the pessimistic side of what I can reasonably expect, and to have the comfort that if I fall into the final 5% I'll get compensation.
There must be an analog with broadband speed claims here also. Quoting the 5th/95th percentile as an indicative value is not helpful to the customer because it doesn't tell you what the 'reasonably probable' outcome is.
If we're being pedantic then the only ambiguity is what happens if they're e.g. 12 minutes late. Taking a strict interpretation you get nothing, since the compensation only applies if they're 10 minutes late.
In my defence, my blood sugar was getting low :-) I just feel the only actual meaningful guarantee in the claim is the 40 minutes. There is no policing of percentiles in any way by some external source, and without that the 40 minute figure is all that actually matters to them or me... So I think even mentioning the 30 minutes is a tad dishonest.
DeleteWell I would certainly agree that they will have chosen 30 minutes entirely for marketing reasons rather than because they actually worked out that it represents e.g. the 75th percentile and that that's a fair and honest way to describe their service :-)
DeleteBut they don't say 40 minutes. That's completely your invention. Let's re-word:
ReplyDelete"We guarantee to aim to deliver your pizza in 30 minutes."
and
"If we deliver your pizza more than ten minutes after we said we would, we'll give you a tenner off your next order."
That's all it says.
I ring up and order and they say "Sorry, due to the large number of orders tonight, we'll be delivering in one hour.". Nothing wrong with that - one has to assume that they had the correct number of staff, ovens and ingredients (the things they could plan for) so they could aim to have it delivered in 30 minutes, but being surprisingly busy made a mess of their plans. Have they failed their guarantee? Of course not - they still aimed for 30 minutes which is all they said they would do.
True to their word, my pizza is delivered in exactly one hour. Is this ten minutes late? Nope.
Dishonest? Only if you start throwing in deadlines they don't mention...
I thought I raised that very point in my blog - 10 minutes late could be 70 minutes. Interesting logic there and if that is really what they mean it really is a meaningless guarantee as the web ordering page does not state a "forecast" either 30 or 60 minutes... If, when ordering they sometimes said "we guarantee to deliver in 70 minutes" that would be sensible in some ways.
DeleteOf course it's meaningless - it's marketing wank.
ReplyDeleteShould be a "Deliver when we say, or you don't pay" guarantee... They give you a delivery time when you order, if they miss it, you get a complete refund..
ReplyDeleteThat will make sure branches with incompetent management get fixed quick enough...