REVIEW: Pizza Hut’s mobile ordering requires careful attention

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Yay or Nay, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week we’ll review a new wireless application or service from the user’s point of view, with the goal of highlighting what works and what doesn’t in the mobile content industry. If you wish to submit your application or service for review, please contact us at [email protected].
Application: Pizza Hut Mobile
Running On: Sanyo Katana II
Yay: Ordering a pizza for delivery when on the go.
Nay: Online registration needed. Ordering process can be a bit clunky.
We say: A handy addition to online ordering for those who can’t wait until they get home to order a pizza.
Not to toot our own horn, but we get several pitches per week for applications to include in Yay or Nay. However, few “hit the spot,” so to speak, as Pizza Hut’s new mobile app for pizza ordering.
While this review will cover the WAP ordering option, Pizza Hut also offers a text messaging-based option that relies on a short code.
For the WAP app, the process of ordering a pizza via your phone begins with a computer. A user needs to create an account on the Pizza Hut Web site that, due to conditions that can only be attributed to hunger pains, was more difficult than expected. As part of the registration process, the user can add potential orders to a “playlist” that then show up on the WAP site when it’s time to order. This does take a bunch of clicks out of the handset-based ordering process, but was a bit awkward as a person needs to input what they think they might want for a pizza order before ever ordering it.
For the text-based ordering process this was even more limiting as an order can only come from the playlist.
As part of the registration process, users can also add multiple addresses to choose from via the WAP site, as well as a credit card number for instant charging.
For those with a more diverse appetite, the WAP site does allow a customized order on the fly, including the ability to add pizzas, drinks, breadsticks and chicken wings, though the process can be a bit tedious depending on network connection speeds.
Once ordered, a confirmation e-mail is sent to the e-mail address added during the registration process, a setup that could cause problems if a user is unable to check that e-mail address via a handset.
Thankfully, the order appeared to go through as the ordered pies arrived within 30 minutes, with everything intact. All that was needed was the signature on the credit card receipt.
Of course, all of these steps are also easily bypassed by simply using one of the many free 411 services currently available to track down the nearest Pizza Hut and placing the order over the phone, but where’s the fun in that? And for those of us hermits who prefer as little interaction with the outside world as possible, the WAP site is a blessing.