Make that a large pepperoni and mushroom with extra cheese. Now pizza lovers will not even have to utter a word or even click-navigate through an online menu. Domino’s has reached the end game of online pizza ordering—that would be the zero click order.
Domino’s won’t stop until its customers are able to simply think about Domino’s pizza and suddenly find themselves magically munching on it. The pizza chain isn’t quite there yet. But today it’s taking another step toward making its customer interactions friction-free by introducing a “Zero Click” ordering app.
It works like this: You download the app and link it to a Domino’s pizza profile, where you have a standard “Easy Order” saved. When you open the app, it automatically orders your pizza, with no clicks required. You have a 10-second countdown window, in case you mistakenly opened the app, to avert the order.
Domino’s is quite proud of its digital ordering innovations. In its fourth-quarter earnings report last year, the company said it generated more than 50 percent of U.S. sales from digital channels by the end of 2015, thanks to tech innovations. (The company hasn’t revealed exactly what percentage of sales come from each specific innovation, and how many people are still ordering the old-fashioned way.)
On the other hand, some of these ease-of-ordering innovations—whatever their actual business results, which appear strong—are a bit gimmicky. Saving you a single click once a week (or however often you order pizza) isn’t going to buy you a whole lot of extra time in life. (And when your kid opens the app by accident while playing Angry Birds, you’re going to lose quite a bit of time explaining things to the delivery person.)
True pizza aficionados will find this more empty crust than deep dish. After all, don’t you want to vary your pizza order from time to time? This app apparently orders the same pizza type all the time unless you change the settings, which would—no surprise—involve clicking or tapping. Plus, the ten second countdown clock will surely result in unintended orders. You can’t say Domino’s is not creative. But count us as thinking this is more gimmick than benefit for most online foodies—we’ll be munching and watching to see how the rollout goes.
Overview by Raymond Pucci, Associate Director, Research Services at Mercator Advisory Group
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