Our local Domino’s Pizza franchises are once again running their five-dollar, no-wait medium pizza promotion – complete with guys on street corners dancing around shamelessly, waving giant signs.

I think it’s a great idea – a medium pizza faster than you can get a prefab cheeseburger, for pretty much the same price.

The last time Domino’s ran the promotion (last summer, I think), we took them up on it at least five or six times – to the tune of two or three pizzas at a time. The first time, I walked up to the counter, placed my order, payed, and walked out, very pleased, with three hot pizzas.

But every time after that first visit, I had to wait for the no-wait pizzas. They always seemed to be “all out of our five-dollar pizzas” – even when I stopped in about ten minutes after the start time for the promo. And I had to sit and wait a long, long time – at least twenty minutes, and on several occasions over half an hour (longer than it takes to have a Domino’s pizza delivered to our house from the same store!).

It became obvious pretty quickly that the local franchisee’s, or store manager’s, or personnel’s interpretation of the promotion was that, sure, they’d sell their medium cheese, pepperoni and sausage pizzas for five bucks – but preparing them in advance, at the risk of having to toss them out if they didn’t sell, was a chance they just weren’t willing to take. Cost-effective? Yes. Good marketing? I’d say no.

It’s a case of what I’ve come to call “WalMart Greeter Syndrome.” A company comes up with an idea, sometimes even a good one, to offer a new service to their customers, only to blow it in the training, or the personnel selection, or the oversight, or the execution. And then, instead of an opportunity to provide a new service, to showcase the business at its best, it becomes a new opportunity to provide poor service.

The Domino’s promotion started back up, I’d say, about a month ago. We’ve had pizza numerous times since then, but we haven’t been back to Domino’s for the no-wait pizza. I just don’t see the value in more aggravation at a lower price.

Is your business better served by your coming up with some novel service that might (or might not) impress your customers, or by your keying in on the basics of service, beating your competitors at the things that matter to your customers?