Plastic Havas

Pizza Pizza:
New and
Improved Web
Experience

Best User Experience / Nominee

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Plastic Havas

Best User Experience

Nominee
We were adamant about checking in with users along the way. Doing formal and informal user tests from our in house usability lab and from the feedback we received we had a feeling it was going to be a hit. - Plastic Havas Team

Q: Can you briefly describe your project and the concept behind it?

A: In 2012, Pizza Pizza introduced the world’s best pizza ordering app (and we have 25 awards and the Webby to prove it). 7 years is a long time in technology terms, the website needed a complete rebuild. Knowing users of Pizza Pizza loved our product we definitely had some work to do to provide a best in class experience.

Q: What influenced your chosen technical approach, and how did it go beyond past methods?

A: Our goal was to build a best in class experience, which we did by focusing on the front end experience first before defining what would need to be built on the back end to bring it to life. We migrated a monolithic e-commerce back end to a cloud-based, powered by over 800 micro services enabling it to scale from 0 to handling millions of orders in microseconds.

Q: What web technologies, tools, or resources did you use to develop this?

A: We use Data Store and Big Query to power our Just For You Recommendations. Dialogue Flow is leveraged for the first ever Pizza Assistant while Wordpress (headless) supports the marketing content and Angular for frontend.

What breakthrough or “a-ha” moment did you experience when concepting or executing this project?

We didn't just look at experiences in the QSR (Quick Service Restaurant) space. We broadened our perspective to what users were enjoying digitally overall and landed on providing a new and innovative way to order pizza that was just as easy, if not easier, than calling the call center now known as our Pizza Assistant.

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Q: How did you balance your creative and technical capabilities with the client’s brand?

A: We really worked well together. The Pizza Pizza team strives to be on the cutting edge both when it comes to their in-person experience as well as digitally. So, when we made suggestions like building the first ever Pizza Assistant it was just a question of how rather than why.

Q: How did the final product defy your expectations?

A: We were adamant about checking in with users along the way. Doing formal and informal user tests from our in-house usability lab and from the feedback we received, we had a feeling it was going to be a hit. What was great to see was that we actually made it 15% faster to order online. For those ordered through the Pizza Assistant doubled their basket and reduced their bounce rate by 50%.

Q: Why is this an exciting time to create new digital experiences? How does your team fit into this?

A: We are definitely all living in a new digital world today than we were six months ago. That said it has been great to see how this experience has helped Pizza Pizza continue doing what they love doing most. Which is being there for and giving back to the communities they call home.
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