I have to explain because the idea of not writing something about sport is new to me. Yes, I do write about other things. Like, who should be the next Batman after Ben Affleck.
Facebook Good For This
The easy answer is Armie Hammer. A newsy bit about that would be interesting for me because I have been reading Batman comics since I was ten. I talk about this regularly with my mate who used to live across the road from me. These days we are on different sides of Australia and without facebook we would not communicate as much as we do.
I would not know about his family, his wife, their kids, their grandkids. That’s right my childhood friend is a Grandpa! I would have little or no knowledge about this if not for the internet and Zuckerman's global advertising application, facebook.
Last night I was able to show my sister a photo of my friend holding his latest grandchild. For that great news I am actually really really grateful. Of course, this is when the big old 'HOWEVER' or 'BUT' rears its ugly head and I start on a downward trend. Because as those who have spent enough time on the internet will know what comes next. The internet and technology bring both good and bad.
The Online Gateway
You know the drill. Technology moves at an accelerating pace. Screens bad. People looking at screens, playing games and sending nudes. The reply to any troll who is telling an outright lie is “pics, or it didn't happen!”. Proof is required in these times. If you went to a concert and did not take photos or live stream it, has it been forgotten? Did it really happen at all?
Confusing? Well that is just part of the social and cultural tangle that all new technology brings. What about the convenience of shopping online? Not just books from Bezos and Amazon but breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sounds simple, huh?
Sorry to burst a bubble but there are a few issues with online gateway apps. Your local pizza, fish and chip shop or noodle bar thought this was a new income stream. What it has done is insert itself between the customer and the local food shop. The gate is always open for the customer, but the local store now has to compete with shops from further away.
Customer loyalty for the small shops is very fragile. There are multiple apps requiring multiple payments to be on those multiple apps. What happens when the small shops try to get out from under the gateway application? If they leave, they lose customers. Why? Because it’s easier to fill in the order online.
How do I know this? The shop that I deliver pizza for tried to leave one of the bigger online gateways. It lasted about four months. Immediately deliveries just dried up. The owner didn’t have the foresight to have an online ordering facility on the store’s website. It was not enough to keep the customers. The owner is still fighting to get the business back in the black.
The Customer Assumes Too Much
If you have ever seen the Russel Crowe movie ‘A Good Year,’ you will know the quote that all hospitality workers agree with. “...the customer is always wrong.” I always thought I was an okay customer. Now I know, I was not. I never have been.
All the assumptions that customers make and have made about food and what it should be like. They are all so very wrong. Add these assumptions to the delivery of food by an online order form from a small local pizza shop and you get some amazing conflagrations.
A lactose intolerant person orders the fancy 'cafe' pizza with no cheese. It comes with feta and cheese, so the cheese is not added. I get to the door and the customer hands the pizza back saying he cannot eat it. It is this moment when the assumptions about ordering and text-based communication collide. The customer has to call the shop back who will make a new pizza without any bovine lactose product.
News like this has different kinds of responses. Most, like this customer are mildly aggressive. I only got a door slammed in my face. At least he did not try to get his money back. The store cannot do that via the gateway app which requires them to call the 1300 number during office hours. The gateway is a process to make money not give it back.
You Have a Phone, Time to Talk
Are we stuck with the gateway apps for food delivery? Outside of a grass roots campaign to buy stuff locally taking off across Australia? Yes, we are stuck with it. Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman tried to stop Amazon and other online gateways from entering Australia and he failed. I do not see how we can beat the world's richest man when even the tabloid press in America fail to.
What we can do is keep it simple and understand the failings of an online ordering system. The cheesecake and no sugar cola may already be sold out, accept it. Stay by your phone after you order because shops will call back if changes are required. Sometimes the order will be incomplete or they do not come with the eftpos machine. People make mistakes. They system is not infallible. Perfection when so many hands are involved and all you do is communicate by an order form is limited to chance.
Technology gets sold as meeting our every need. Microsoft made it a cornerstone of their operating system. As a former IT person, I can tell you that this is bad programming. Technology is miraculous but is unable to tell the person making your pizza that you want only three anchovies on one slice of pizza. The best way of getting what you want is talking to someone. It always has been.
Now all I have to do is get the time zones between Perth and Melbourne right to congratulate a new grandparent.
Phill Hall delivers pizza in Melbourne's outer east, plays cricket and is starting a masters application on the interplay between technology and hope. Also please don't ask for anchovies on one slice of your pizza. You may get put on the stores bad list, or worse.