Papa John’s has taken online ordering and made it slick. They make it easy to set up an online account, make choices from their menu, and have it delivered to your home or office. You can even do it from a mobile phone! While I have had no problems with the local end of Papa John’s, my problem has been with promotional emails and coupon codes not working. Take getting promotional emails. I signed up for them when I first registered yet it took several weeks for it to work. And then suddenly they stopped. I asked about it and they had me change my password and select the email option. That did not work and I reported it as such. And then suddenly they came back on again.

Now before Christmas I decided to turn off getting those promo emails and turned them back on in January. And then nothing, I contacted Papa John’s by email about the problem and was told to call in for assistance. And then presto, I got an email welcoming to Papa John’s online promotions. So whatever the problem was, they were able to fix it. I suspect the problem is software related. It seems to have a problem noticing when you sign-up or in some cases just stopping the emails.

Then came one after Superbowl Sunday promising 50% off the menu. A great deal except the coupon code did not work. An email requesting clarification was sent back the first time as “user unknown” but a resend got through. The response though was quite odd:

———
From: Consumer_Services@papajohns.com
Subject: Re: Please Authenticate 50% off promotion
To: Mark Taylor

xb49mzvvv9zc

Operations Call Center
Papa John’s International
1-877-547-7272

Order Pizza Online @ www.papajohns.com

Please Authenticate 50% off promotion

Mark E. Taylor
to:
consumer_services
2/05/2013 04:13 PM

——-

The message is simply gibberish. I tried calling Papa John’s and incredibly I got a busy signal each time I tried. I gave up and sent an email about the poor response. I also noted the previous problems. Now to be fair they did send out another promotion for a $9.99 large pizza (which is a good deal and I ordered one) but it does not fix the underlying problem that seems to plague their computer system. And it makes me not want to trust ordering online anymore because of it. I recall many months ago they sent out a promotion that had totally inaccurate information on the promotion code and how to use it. They had to resend it with a correction.

It just makes you wonder who is running the place-perhaps those mischievous Cornish pixies from Harry Potter. Or perhaps someone is purposefully mucking up the system (hackers) and they are loathed to admit it. Get your house in order Papa John’s. Such problems left untreated grow and eventually bring down companies. As for me, I think I will give Papa John’s a break for a while. There is nice Chinese restaurant not far from where I live that serves delicious dim sum.