Domino’s Tracker

Centuries from now, if there are still museums, the placard for The Millennial will read: “He valued experiences over things.”

Today, though, Domino’s pizza tracking app offers the coveted marketing demographic the best of both worlds: the experience of tracking your order in real time — “from the moment it’s prepared to the second it leaves our store for delivery” — and a tangible pizza thing.

Some millennials, however, say the app is a sham, from the person it says delivers the pie to the specific times it gives for preparation and delivery.

A Wall Street Journal report describing the accounts of three millennial “app truthers” starts with one Brent Gardiner, a 24-year-old Connecticut man whose enthusiasm for the Domino’s Tracker was forever changed when a man named Melinda came knocking at his door. According to the Journal:

The app had told Mr. Gardiner that someone named Melinda was [delivering his pizza]. “I said, ‘Hey Melinda,’ and he was like ‘what the f— are you talking about?’ Ever since then, I knew everything they said, I felt, was made up. I was like, ‘I wonder if, when they say they’re putting it in the oven, if they’re actually putting it in the oven?’”

Alecia Smith, 23, also shared her “first traumatic experience” with the app. It happened over the summer when she said it took 52 minutes from the time the app said the pizza was being delivered for the pie to arrive at her door. The proof that it couldn’t have taken that long? Smith said she lives 20 minutes from the Domino’s store and the pizza was still warm.

“If you’ve taken the time to create this technology to try and be engaged with your customer,” Smith said, “can you do it correctly at least?”

For its part, Domino’s told the Journal that the app “has worked as intended for nearly a decade for millions and millions of orders,” though the company admitted to the occasional mix-up with drivers’ names.

Find more of our coverage on apps here.