TikTokers are discovering that the Domino’s Pizza tracker is apparently just a highly efficient timer designed to reduce customer queries.
Emily Sullivan (@emilysullivan) is a TikTok content creator with over 24,800 followers. Her TikTok reacting to the discovery that the Domino’s Pizza tracker is allegedly just a timer got over 5.5 million views since being posted on Jan. 10.
“What do you mean steve didn’t put my pizza in the oven at 5:56,” the TikToker joked as she appeared to be in disbelief over a greenscreen of the “tracker,” which claims her order is in the oven.
“Don’t say that; please don’t say that. It was real; it was real to me,” the TikToker lip-synchs.
But it’s likely that Steve did, in fact, put Sullivan’s pizza in the oven at 5:56.
A representative for Domino’s told the Daily Dot in a statement that the tracker “is linked directly to computers in the store, and is based on actual store operations. When the pizza is made and put in the oven, the store team member must press a button, which updates Domino’s Tracker. The same goes for when the pizza goes out on delivery.”
The representative called the Domino’s tracker “real tracking technology.”
And HuffPost reported in 2014 that “the tracker is legit — but only as legit as the people in the store let it be.”
So it’s up to the workers to let the computer know when they place an order in the over or leave for delivery, and the technology figures out how long it should take for the delivery to make it to a customer’s home.
TikToker Sean (@seansvv) is a big tech educator and TikTok content creator with over 866,200 followers. Sean regularly posts videos explaining the fine print of technology patents.
They stitched Sullivan, and aimed to explain how the Domino’s Pizza tracker works. Their video got over 100,300 views since being posted Jan. 13.
“I did my thing, and I read the whole frickin’ patent,” Sean says. “I finally understand why they have this. They’re not out to fool us. It’s to reduce the amount of people who are calling and asking, ‘What status is my pizza at?’”
“If you build a data set that is trained on past orders and how long it takes, and you have people checking off portions of the processing manually, it’s not a trick,” Sean continues.
They go on to explain how the point of the tool is to take the burden of dealing with impatient customers off of the Domino’s employees.
“Treat the workers like human beings,” Sean urges viewers. “The fact that someone had to code this so that people didn’t get impatient about their pizza shocks me.”
Update Jan. 28 1:53pm CT: When reached for comment, Sean told the Daily Dot that “after publishing my deep dive of the Domino’s patented pizza timer and how the timer is coded and integrated, my comments were immediately filled with Domino’s workers.”
They said a “handful” thanked them for highlighting “how the system prevents impatient customers from calling the store directly, not realizing that they are the ones delaying their own pizza.”
Sean also called the tracker “a genius business decision on Domino’s behalf.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Sullivan via TikTok direct message.
Editor’s note: Due to a technical error, our original message to Sullivan may not have been delivered. We have since reached out.
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