Pizza Hut iPhone application overview

Mark Freidin

21st Mar 2010

Having acquired an iPhone recently myself, I am still in awe of the capabilities of this device, and I took the opportunity to download the recently launched Pizza Hut application for iPhone to see what all the fuss is regarding this application.

In October 2009 Pizza Hut Australia announced the  planned launch of their iPhone application modelled on Pizza Hut USA’s successful iPhone application implementation. After much waiting it was recently launched in Australia. Last week I noticed that it was the 7th most downloaded Australian application from iTunes.

The Pizza Hut application really sums up what abilities and capabilities  exist in an organisation with good systems, polices and procedures that are easily replicated across the country via a chain of franchise type locations and can be naturally extended to a mobile application

After viewing the application and playing around with it last week, I was driving home one evening and needed to stop at a take away (not Pizza Hut) to get some dinner. I was amazed how irritated I got that this fast food franchise didn’t have an iPhone application to allow me to pre-order my meal. It also highlighted to  me how spoiled we have become as consumers yet this opens up opportunities for online retailers in meeting this instant gratification that quality applications like this provide.

Back to the Pizza Hut application: After a simple registration process the application offers you the choice of turning on geo location services via the iPhone’s GPS service to notify you of your nearest location (You can also manually enter a location). It then asks whether you want deliver or pick up and what time you will collect or have delivered. A scroll wheel then appears with a menu. What drew my attention to  this application is firstly its simplicity and ease of use for users. The design interface is fun and intuitive.

From an Internet retailing perspective the infrastructure behind this application is fantastic. I marvel at the ability of an organisation like this to replicate its offering across all its bricks and mortar sites right down to the type of soft drink in the refrigerator in each store. With systems like this in place the robustness of this Pizza Hut iPhone application shines through and demonstrates how mobile retailing or mobile commerce can naturally become another channel that consumers can use to conveniently interact with the retailer. What I didn’t do is place an order and see if it was delivered hot and on time, and thats a story for another time!

Watch this video, it explains in a few seconds  what I cannot explain in a thousand words. (Note this is the US version)