Meet The Coupon-Throwing Papa John's Owner From Hell
Papa John's wouldn't let reader Adi redeem her coupon for a $9.99 extra-large pizza online, so she trekked over to the nearest store in Weymouth, Massachusetts, where she met the franchise owner from hell. The owner insisted that the coupon didn't apply to online orders, so Adi asked to cancel her online order and re-order her pizza in person to get the discount. This prompted the owner to angrily throw the coupon at Adi, before throwing away her ready-made pizza. And was just the start of the fun...
Adi writes:
I ordered a pizza online tonight, and since there was no field to enter my coupon, I brought my coupon to the store. The staff member at the register was unsure how to enter it, so she got someone else to help me.
When I showed her the coupon in question, this woman informed me I couldn't use it. I asked why and she said I ordered online. I re-read the coupon and when I pointed out there was no online exclusion she said it didn't say it COULD be used online. I said that unless there was a printed exclusion, it should be acceptable. She refused, and I said that I would like to cancel my previous order and re-order my pizza using the coupon. Her answer was, "Fine. You can wait." She threw the coupon back across the counter and I asked, "Isn't the pizza already made? You're going to throw it away and make a new one?" She replied that she was and after commenting that that was ridiculous, I stepped back to wait. She then yelled, "What do you want?" I began to answer and she interrupted me, yelling, "I can't HEAR you." I spoke louder and placed my order and she held out her hand for the coupon. I handed her the page of coupons and again she threw it back, saying, "You have to tell me which one." I pointed it out for the third time, and she typed in the code and then threw the page away. I asked for the remaining coupons back and she snapped, "I'm not your secretary!"
At this point I asked if she were a manager and she informed me she was the co-owner. I was shocked a business owner would take part in such a display of such deplorable customer service. Of course, an employee would be fired in a minute for such belligerence.
When I got home I relayed the experience to my boyfriend, who insisted on calling and demanding an apology. After speaking to the owner, she refused to apologize and he informed her we would be contacting corporate. I realize she is a franchise owner, but I assume she is NOT the sort of person you want as the face of your company, and I suggest action should be taken, perhaps in the form of customer service training. I would also like to be compensated for my time and for the fact that I endured such vitriolic interaction.
I've been a Papa John's customer for a few years, and have never had a problem before, but something of this nature makes me think about never stepping foot in one of your stores ever again.
(Photo: LiveU4)
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Comments:
As a Consumerist formality I would like to state the following
1) You should not buy Papa John's Pizza, you should go to small hole-in-wall restaurant which is in my hometown and has the best pizza in the world
2) You should not buy Papa John's Pizza, you should make it at home for $0.36 a serving
Now that is out of the way, we can discuss the actual issue, which is that the store did not accept a coupon, and wasted food just to spite customer...
Sometimes people are just jerks!
Wow. What a crazy bitch.
How much you want to bet she's not REALLY the co-owner?
You likely caught someone on a bad day. If she really was the owner, she's likely been stressing a ton over money lately.
Not that I am saying this justifies what she did, but may explain why she acted that way.
Why do people assume that EVERYONE lives next to some amazing hole in the wall pizza joint?
It sounds like that woman had some anger issues that no customer service training is going to solve.
I would have gotten as far as, "You're going to throw the pizza out?" before I left. Pretty insane... but it's i Weymouth, which explains half of the problem to me.
Having done a fair amount of corporate a/v work for Papa Johns in years past, and meeting the conscientious owner himself on a couple of occasions, I recommend you escalate your complaint to PJ corporate and to the man, himself -- John Schnatter. Papa Johns tries to instill and maintain a number of standards of its franchise owners and frowns on this kind of behavior. Neither Schnatter nor his underlings will look favorably on your treatment.
@Dragonfire81: Don't try to explain why she acted any particular way.
If she was stressing over money as you suggest than she should be nice to customers. Creating good will so that they will return to the store and buy more pizza and perhaps tell others of their experience.
See thats rational.
So the only explanation for her action is that she's a nut job. Everyone should steer clear of that crazy ladies pizza business.
However if you want entertainment you should have all of your friends go down to the store at the same time and order pizza with the coupons. You gotta fight crazy with crazy.
@Randal Milholland: Perhaps the pizza needed to be remade so they could add a "special topping"? Yechh!
@Pro-Pain: Which is the worst depends on what part of town you're in. Near my house, the really good privately-owned store just closed down, most of the chains are crap, and Papa John's actually does really well. But the PJ franchise in the next town over is really rude and gets a lot of orders wrong.
At least all those places serve something edible, not like that disc of slimy horribleness that Imo's tries to pass off as "pizza." =b^)
My situation with Papa John's is completely the opposite. For the past 6 months or so, there has been a coupon online for an $8.99 large, one-topping. Not a coupon-code I snatched from retailmenot, mind you, but actually listed on their website as one of the specials once you log in.
I walk home from work, so one night, I figured I'd get a head start on things and order on my way home so that I'd have food shortly after arrive.
I called up and the people on the other end of the line simply had no idea what do do. They said that they had no idea about an $8.99 large, had never seen it before and asked me several times if I was sure I wasn't making it up. They wanted to charge me $11.99 over the phone, so I told them "no, thank you", and 30 minutes later placed my order online for an $8.99 large.
The employees are all extremely nice, but you would think there would be some sort of cooperation between the online ordering system and ordering in person. Strange.
Pizza chains are (mostly) bad. I normally make pizza from scratch at home for a fraction of the cost, but for those times we need something fast and easy we try to go to local joints. Recently we went to pick up our order and found that one pizza had the wrong toppings. They made us a new one and also gave us the one with wrong toppings too, no charge, to make up for the extra wait. And they did it all with a smile. That is how to treat customers.
@jusooho:
You forgot #3: You should not use any retail bank credit card to pay for your pizza. Open a credit union account and charge back the pizza, saving $.36/serving and getting a free pizza.
My God, you live in Weymouth. Go to Capones.
@muffinpan: This post deserves the bully tag. Some people become franchise owners so they can push others around. Some people just like to be bullies.
@AuraSeer: You know, I used to knock Imo's too, then I moved away from it. Now that you've mentioned it, I'm getting the weirdest craving for it. :/
@mgy: The online systems are created by corporate. The local owners probably aren't trained or apprised of the online coupons, specials, etc. Of course, the owners should take the 5-10 minutes it would require to find out about them. I imagine local franchises in some manner feel miffed about the online-thing, like they're out of the loop, or they just like to hate on all things that come from corporate. I've had online coupon problems with Papa John's and Pizza Hut. The local PH makes me print out the online coupons and give them to the delivery person.
@Pro-Pain: In St. Louis, isn't all pizza a travesty of crackerlike crust, ketchup-y sauce and Provel cheese, cut into squares?
why would anybody stick out waiting for a pizza after being screamed at?
Once they didn't take my coupon I probably would have just told the woman off and left. Chinese is better anyway.
we are lucky here...we have a ledo's up the road a short piece...good pizza and good people.....there's a domino's also up the road that will deliver....they can stay up the road and keep their delivery....lousy pizza.....tho i don't know any of the people, and probably never will.....
@ColoradoShark: Which is exactly why I wouldn't want it. Anytime I've had bad service that involved the server or manager saying, "We'll have to remake it" (twice I can think of), I've just opted to go somewhere else.
I wouldn't have taken the second piza home. No telling what that crazy Papa Johns bitch did to it.
What kind of person hands the retailer a sheet of coupons and expects the retailer to cut out/tear out your coupon and give you the sheet back? That action makes me believe that the bad attitude wasn't just limited to the store owner.
I love the Papa John's on-line ordering. Basically the only reason I order from PJ is because I can do so on-line.
@ChuckECheese: If the franchisee doesn't want to be bothered with all the corporate stuff she should have learned how to make a decent pizza and opened up her own hole-in-the-wall. It'd probably cost her less.
@Concerned_Citizen: Oh, boo ****ing hoo. The "kind of person" who expects a merchant to do two seconds of trivial work providing a minimal level of customer service is called a customer. Get over yourself.
I tried to use 3 separate online coupons for ordering from PJ's a couple of months ago, and none of them were accepted by the online system. So I called the local place, they said that couldn't take online coupons over the phone. So I get pizza from Domino's now.
No other local pizza places around for miles. God, do I miss Philly
(I'm in Maryland now).
I agree. The lady was treated poorly but she knows better than to not tear out the coupon ahead of time.
@Concerned_Citizen
The franchise owner was being a major bitch, and the OP was being patient up to that point. If it were me in that situation, giving her a sheet with 20 coupons out of spite would have been the least I would've done.
@Concerned_Citizen:
Yep. I read that and the bulk of the story seemed a bit more questionable. Depending on where the woman lived, driving over to Papa John's would more than likely negate the cost saving of a coupon. What's she going to save... $2? And more than likely, she's going to spend about $2 worth of gas to get there?
This story doesn't add up fully.
@S3CT:
Also, that makes me wonder... I will fully admit that I am not familiar with how Papa John's handles their coupons, but it seems kind of odd they would print out a tangible, full coupon sheet and give them to customers that ONLY work for online use. I can't think of any time I've ever seen any other pizza place that gives you physical coupons that can ONLY be used online.
There are no lie 25+ pizza places in my township and I assure you I'd never step foot in Papa John's again if that happened to me.
@chiieddy:
No, bad advice. Chain restaurants are the best. For pizza, go to Papa Johns or Pizza Hut. Hamburgers, Burger King or McDonalds. If the chains weren't the very best, they wouldn't be as large as they are. As you know, most people have gourmet taste.
As for this incident, it seems like the perfect storm of an unreasonable customer and an incompetent fast food clerk having a meeting of the minds.
Awful, after throwing away the first pizza, I would have waited for them to make the second one, and then canceled that order as well. Just so she can waste two.
Thats ridiculous treatment. And to run your own business so poorly... she deserves to lose that franchise.
@Preyfar: Some people are just coupon crazy. I have seen some people do crazy stuff to get that extra $.50 off even if it means that they have to drive across town to get the coupon and come back to use it wherever. Maybe she is one of those people that don't really think before they act.
On another note, never in a million years would I have taken the pizza from them. Possibly the one that was already made if it was right there and already packaged up and that was that, just take it and go. But a new one? Absolutely not. 1. It was an unnecessary waste of food and the woman should be forced to starve for the rest of her life (the worker/and possibly the customer for accepting the new pizza, which shows even though she put up a fuss, she really didn't mind the action b/c she went ahead and paid someone money who acted like that). and 2. Waiting for it caused even more unnecessary communication. I think we all know the possible contaminations she was eating that night. Eew.
@ClayS: From someone working in retail, expecting a coupon that says "Papa Johns" on it to work everywhere despite how you order it is NOT unreasonable, I wouldn't have thought twice about overridding that price.
Seriously, before the customer asked, I would have seen the sheet of coupons and already be in the middle a price adjustment before she asked me about it. I might have even asked her what the promotion on the coupon was so she didn't have to bother to stress over it.
But hey, when a company writes me a paycheck, I take their reputation personally and do everything I can to keep that reputation respectable.
I completely believe the OP's story.
But I don't understand the whole "write to Consumerist before trying to contact corporate" thing.
I'm not blaming you, OP. Consumerist doesn't discourage this and you're just following what other people do. But it makes no sense for Consumerist to post complaints where customers haven't even tried to resolve the problem. Isn't Consumerist supposed to be teaching consumers how to solve problems???
@RetailGuy83:
Since she wasn't able to enter the coupon when ordering online, that should have been a clue. She could have called to ask if the coupon could be used. Beats ordering, driving out to the store and then finding out.
As far as the clerk, she was a co-owner, so she had the latitude to honor the discount or do something else to satisfy the customer. A little flexibility in a situation like this makes sense.
@twophrasebark:
It would seem that the above account was sent to corporate (emphasis mine):
"I realize she is a franchise owner, but I assume she is NOT the sort of person you want as the face of your company, and I suggest action should be taken, perhaps in the form of customer service training. "
@jusooho: "Now that is out of the way, we can discuss the actual issue, which is that the store did not accept a coupon, and wasted food just to spite customer..."
Ok, go ahead....... We're waiting. Oh, you don't have anything on-topic to contribute?
Kick her in the face and eat a P'zone.
Papa John's put up two franchises in my neck of the woods about five years ago. They were gone within 6 months to a year, which stinks because I liked rotating in some of their pizza now and then for variety. Every time we went in, the price seemed to be floating. We would usually get a 2 large pizzas for $11 deal, but sometimes when we asked for it they would tell us that wasn't the price so we had to pay $11 each. It was shady.
During one of our last remaining trips there the guy running the shop looked hella depressed, like he was sweeping up before heading home to swallow a gun barrel. It sounds like you caught a person who was in a similar and stressing the numbers. I don't think you made things better by being confrontational towards someone who was so clearly going to be aggressive. I am never standoffish with people who make food that I then eat.
Blame the "victim". Have you no pride? After the first or second time she yelled, or first or second time she threw the coupons back, you didn't leave and go somewhere else, well, you have no spine. People shouldn't have to take that crap, and if that means having to go somewhere else for food, then so be it. Do not willingly give them money for bad service then complain about it.
Some people, especially in new england, are not cut out to be seen in public, let alone deal with them. We used to have a Dunkn Donuts where the night manager wouldnt toast anything after 10. Also we had a Cumby's where the lady refused to learn the lottery machine. Both of these women were your typical 60 something cat ladies. I assume the woman mentioned above is the same.
Wow, that's crazy! Some people are just a mental disaster I guess. Papa Johns is gross though. Here is St. Louis it is considered the WORST pizza joint out of them all.