Tuesday 9 October 2007

Loyalty cards and Micros

In July we got loyalty cards. They gave us 4000 of the things to hand out. I can give you the exact figure we have had back. It has been hard to keep track because of the sheer amount but we did manage it: 3.

Out of 4000 cards we have had 3 redemptions. Oh well, maybe head office will come up with a better promotion other than you need to spend £12 to get a 99p side free or £36 to get a £2.69 pizza, next time round.

Yesterday the new menu launched complete with Meatball Deli. All our previous paperwork told us it was called Mamas Meatballs but they changed their mind. I tried it, the meatballs are soft but a bit dry. They need some kind of sauce on top, and they are so big the cheese falls of them. We also got chicken goujons (chicken fillet in southern fried coating, new to all Pizza Hut formats) and I can conclude they are around 10 times nicer than chicken dippers - not bad for an extra 10p. We don't do dippers anymore thankfully.

We got new menu boards and they are incredibly ugly - instead of having the titles of the meals at the top, it is at the bottom. Maybe I'm being too fussy.

To accommodate the new menu the tills software has to be updated. A lovely company called Micros does this. They have altered some bits but it has mainly stayed the same. Except the final pay screen. There used to be a large CASH button in the bottom right with equally sized £50, £20, £10 and £5 buttons just below them. But in their fantastic upgrade, they'll half the size of the CASH button as well as the £10 and £5 buttons. They have kept the £50 and £20 buttons the original size. And now at the bottom of the screen there is just grey, empty space. So no longer can you tap the bottom right of the screen to go through. It is a pain and just makes the chance of change inaccuracies greater. Micros are the same great people who put a pop up saying "Have you completed the change?" button after the cash drawer has opened but before the receipt will print. The purpose of this I have no idea. If it was saying "Would the customer like a receipt?" I could understand - we could save paper on all the people who don't want one.

I think this post really requires a photograph to explain why this is such a pain. I'll have to get one soon, but I'm hoping the next time I go in they have realised their stupid mistakes.

9 comments:

James (UK) said...

How many of the 4000 did you actually get taken / give out? Did all 4000 go?

And why do I get the feeling that "Micros" aren't the best company to be configuring English tills? "Have you completed the change?" makes me think that some Tibetian monk who has only just learnt English wrote that!

Doesn't anyone let users test anything now before they roll it out?

I was using some helpdesk software that costs millions to my employers today; I wanted to search for an "incident" by it's allocated number from yesterday, and it was the first time I had needed to do that.

Put in number, hit "search" - nothing found.

Only later did someone point out three radio buttons; "open", "closed" and "all".

Whoever wrote the software decided that part should ALWAYS be set to "open" at all times as default.

WHY NOT "All" you idiots!

Al said...

Don't get me started about dodgy till software, I could go on all day. I have no idea who does ours though.

An option for the receipt would be a much better idea rather than the completed change thing. I wonder if the programmers just learnt how to add something like that in and decided they just had to use it somehow. Common sense probably didn't get a look in.

Pizza Hut Team Member said...

Yeah James, we gave out all 4000 of the bloody things. We got stamps and pads all prepared for the influx of them and then we got on average - one a month.

Al - everyone hates the pop up. It is such a stupid thing, you have no option other than to press "OK". But you can leave the pop up on the screen, and give the change out, finish the order without pressing the button so the customer doesn't get the receipt, but at some point the receipt will be printed. Basically it increases the chance of change inaccuracies because it's another button to fiddle around with and decreases the chance of the customer getting their receipt - so all round it is not helpful.

D said...

We use Micros, and it sucks. They have strange ideas...

We have an interesting option where it pops up to confirm if the order is correct if you have more guests on the table than beverage orders... Interesting. I can see the idea behind it. It's just a little stupid when the beverages in question are BOTTLES of wine.

There was also a brief period at the beginning of their use when all waitresses had to have a manager come over to authorise the sale, and allow a receipt to be printed, even though the till had already opened... We had to upgrade all waitresses accounts to supervisors because it was completely unworkable.

James (UK) said...

"We have an interesting option where it pops up to confirm if the order is correct if you have more guests on the table than beverage orders... Interesting"

You can just see a bored programmer who'd finished the main code early suddenly thinking that would be a good idea and adding it in without thinking it through, can't you.

Anonymous said...

I saw that new one with the meatballs and stuff advertised. When I get another car (having had mine stolen), I will probably go to my nearest PH and get one to try).

Anonymous said...

our shop just start using new system and it's all confusing ..

Anonymous said...

The items you mention are all configurable. They are optional and the person responsible for your configuration can change them.

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