The critics are wrong! Don Meij on why the new Chef's Best pizza range are game changers for the industry
Domino's CEO, Don Meij, talks about the brand's new pizzas.
With the revelation of Domino’s new Game Changer pizzas, questions have surfaced on whether the brand’s new product has lived up to its hype. Different reactions have been expressed on various social media networks about the new product of Domino’s, which has been tagged to ‘revolutionise’ the Australian pizza industry.
Inside Retail reports that sales of the new Domino’s product have been significantly high, with a strong customer demand during its first week in the market.
Read the full report here.
Below is a Q&A with Don Meij.
QSR Media: What would you like to tell the market about your new pizzas and toppings?
Don: The new Chef’s Best range is set to revolutionise the Australian pizza industry. We have spent over a year researching what customers want, to ensure this new range lives up to their expectations. In fact a recent survey of over 1,600 Australians revealed that 80% of respondents want more toppings and over 70% want more restaurant quality ingredients on their pizza. Chef’s Best captures these demands by using high quality ingredients such as peking duck, blue cheese baby spinach, smoked leg ham, olives, mozzarella, oregano, succulent BBQ roast pork, creamy camembert and shiraz braised lamb shank all the while keeping the price point low, starting at as little as just $8.
QSR Media: How is the new pizza range "game changing"?
Don: At Domino’s it is our number one aim to consistently be ahead of the pack. Chef’s Best is revolutionising the pizza industry by democratising pizza. Never before has pizza been sold at such high quality, while keeping the prices so low. It gives customers loaded premium pizza for less than half the price of other outlets. Anything that is this substantially higher value than other products is changing the game and we know our competitors will be forced to follow.
QSR Media: There have been some comments in the mainstream media about the announcement not living up to the hype, how do you respond?
Don: There are always going to be negative comments on mainstream media, particularly social media which is known for producing unfavourable remarks. We are finding that most of the negative comments are coming from people who actually haven’t tried the new pizzas. Once people try the Chef’s Best range they understand why we are so excited about it. We also have over 836,000 fans on our Facebook page so there’s always going to be a passionate response!
In fact we had a pizza party on Sunday night for some lucky Facebook fans who absolutely loved it and couldn’t believe the high quality. Additionally on Monday we did some unbranded sampling of the range in Belmore Park in Sydney. Subsequent to knowing it was Domino’s the general consensus was that the pizza would be worth $15 - $20. After we told people that the product was Domino’s they were flabbergasted, with one lady going so far as to shriek “are you joking me?” See attached.
QSR Media: It has been reported that you are monitoring Social Media and have taken down unflattering comments about the "game changer", what are your thoughts?
Don: This is disappointing to hear because we are a business that believes in feedback – positive and negative. With over 836,000 Facebook fans in Australia we know we aren’t always going to please everyone, always but it’s important for us to grow from the feedback, improve our customer service and product offering and ultimately turn it around so the customer has a positive experience with the Domino’s brand. We deny suggestions that we have removed any unflattering comments. We only ever remove comments from Facebook that are offensive, racist or use profound language. If you visit the Domino’s Facebook page it becomes quite clear that we don’t just delete any negative comment posted on the page. It is our social media policy at Domino’s to use the feedback constructively to improve our product offering and the overall customer service experience.
