Pizza Hut responds yet again
October 28, 2007
If you’re looking for the petition to His Majesty in relation to the judiciary, you will find it together with instructions on how to sign up in support on the right under Pages.
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Lawrence Ding of Pizza Hut wrote to me on 22/10/2007 with a follow-up explanation.
I informed him that as I was focussed on the petition and did not want to distract attention in this blog from the same by any other issue, I would only put up his explanation as a post later.
He has very kindly waited.
His follow-up explanation appears below.
_______________________________
To All My Friends, Truth Seekers and Pizza Hut Supporters,
Thanks for all the responses on the above subject matter.
There are TWO issues raised in the blog and I will try to answer each one:
Allegation no 1: Pizza Hut Practices Discrimination in Service Charge dependant on race.
I categorically deny this allegation as it is NOT true and the allegation was a Hoax.
To put this allegation to rest, I personally would invite you to visit ANY Pizza Hut restaurants nearest to you and make a purchase to see if the above allegation is true.
Pizza Hut Malaysia is a Public Listed company and we are bound by law to collect the 5% sales taxes and we also have a 10% service charge on Table Service as all dining establishments do.
Should you decide to order a Take Away, there is no service charge for Take Away order.
As a good corporate citizen, we will never ever deviate from the law of our land.
Allegation no 2: Pizza Hut Practices race profiling.
Again this allegation is Not True. We categorically deny it. We do not profile customers by race.
The only concession as stated in my earlier posting, was when we conduct a quick In-House research for internal use in 2006. Information on group size, ethnic mix was noted during the transitionary period of our Brand Strategy moving from a QSR Concept to an Enhanced Dine-In Concept, to see how our different concepts resonate with the different population segment.
We are in a multi ethnic, multicultural society. To obtain a fair representation of the market, a research must take into consideration the sampling of these multi ethnic, multi cultural factors. Otherwise, the research is considered biased. Talk to any research based person and you will understand.
Let me assure you that there is NO other intention other than the one stated above when we collected the data for a short 3 months period. That is why I say I categorically deny the allegation. We do not profile our customers.
Please visit Pizza Hut Restaurants nearest to you and you can check it out yourself.
Possible Background To the Hoax Mail.
I truly believe the originator of the hoax mail (let us call him Mr H) made a mistake by comparing his bill (most likely a Dine-In customer because it has a 10% service charge) versus another bill of someone (who happened to be a Malay who purchased a Take Away and his bill does not have the 10% service charge). So he (Mr H) felt he has been discriminated against to pay the extra 10% service charge compared to the Malay customer who actually ordered a Take Away (no service charge for Take Away).
Mr H ignorantly put the two together jumped into conclusion and cried foul. He then decides to let the whole internet world know about his case agony.
This whole episode that has now taken an unpleasant racial slant because people believed him with the picture of the dockets.
If the originator of the hoax mail or anyone who cared enough to propagate the viral mail, have just taken the little trouble to contact us or verify the suspicion, it would have saved the frustration and misperception of all of us.
I am the Senior General Manager of Pizza Hut Malaysia and I am assuring all of you and your friends and all the Truth Seekers out there, that both the allegations above are NOT TRUE and we categorically deny it.
We are also a franchised company from Yum! Restaurants International, another Public Listed company in the US. We are a good corporate citizen, law abiding and honest company. We will NOT violate the law of the land nor unnecessarily create any tension that will jeopardize our very own business.
Please visit any Pizza Hut Restaurant nearest you and find out for yourselves if what I tell you is true.
Your help to just circulate this to your friends will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your attention.
October 28, 2007 at 8:18 am
It is a “reasonable” explanation but I am not going to buy the story in its entirety. Even if it is what Pizza Hut claims the whole episode to be, the company isn’t very clever in how the exercise was done.
I still have some nagging doubts. And I am not going back to dine at Pizza Hut yet.
October 28, 2007 at 9:36 am
I believe you.It would be absurd, unthinkable and suicidal for a company in the food business to practise racial profiling.
I am sorry for those who believe in the rumour.
October 28, 2007 at 10:37 am
Let me assure you that there is NO other intention other than the one stated above when we collected the data for a short 3 months period. That is why I say I categorically deny the allegation. We do not profile our customers.
Please provide documentary proof of this. State clearly when exactly is the 3 months period. List the outlet involved.
Because I still that you are not being truthful.
October 28, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Because I still that you are not being truthful.
Correction :
Because I still find that you are not being truthful.
Addition :
You have implied that the data collection was done early in the new concept thing. Which was in the year 2005 if I may remind you of your earlier response, less you forgotten your line of story.
October 28, 2007 at 3:03 pm
This is my first visit to The People’s Parliament. I came on to sign the petition to save the judiciary. I’ve done that and with some luck I’m 5037. Then the Pizza Hut saga caught my eye. And I am dismayed.
I am dismayed because the publication of the complainant’s email without adequate verification of the facts and the immediate reaction of Haris to that mail are precisely the kinds of unhealthy practices cited by those who hate bloggers (mainly government ministers and rich businessmen accused of sordid corruption)and would have them condemned to the depths of hell, if they only could.
The complainant would have us believe he or she is MALAY who is indignant over the fact that Pizza Hut is augmenting the NEP by not charging Malays the 5 and 10. I am also surprised why Malays would be designated with the letter “O” and not “M”. “O” might seem more appropriate for “Others”. If true, this is a very righteous human being who wants to pay more. Secondly this Malay happens to have Sri Lankan friends who happen to have kept bills a few weeks old from establishments like PH. I can think of keeping many things in life, but a PH bill? Whatever for? Now, these are still plausible, but surely there must be an element of incredulity in these facts. Thus I am dismayed that Haris would promptly announce “No more Pizza Hut for me” without giving PH the opportunity to explain why they were monitoring the racial composition of their customers, an action that cannot be denied. What is even more disappointing is that Haris is a lawyer who would have been schooled steeply in the concept of fairness and quality of evidence – whatever these lawyers are supposed to be good at. Thus far I would lend more weight towards Lawrence Ding’s believe that this was a hoax, perhaps to set up someone.
On to the statement by Lawrence Ding then:
He says that “we also have a 10% service charge on Table Service as all dining establishments do.” This is strictly not true. I’ve dined at some establishments which do not charge the 10% for service. I’m sure of this because I like to leave a tip if the service is reasonable but I would first check the bill to see whether they have already added the service charge. I do not patronize PH because run of the mill stuff in the US and Europe is treated as exotic fare here in Malaysia at prices I do not believe to be value for money. That’s my personal opinion but anyone can disagree until he/she turns blue. Also I do want the non-halal stuff in my topping. So I have been forced to make my own (my maids are excellent at it now after much wasted dough, er money) but that’s another story.
Secondly, Ding believes the hoaxer is definitely not Malay who somehow got to see the bill of a Malay who also happen to be on ‘takeaway’. This could turn into a movie.
We know the 5% is must by law, whether it is takeaway or dine-in. There cannot be hanky-panky in this tax or PH must cough up the tax. What is flexible is the 10% service charge which is levied on table service but not takeaway. This add-on is only a keystroke away so I would ask what internal control Mr Ding has in place to ensure that a cashier at any outlet will enter the 10% charge for every dine-in at PH regardless of race or not show favouritism towards friends or relatives. What check is in place to ensure that a dine-in is not treated as a takeaway? Frankly, it is also easy to cross check a sampling of the order dockets marked ‘C’ and ‘M’ or “O” to the final ring in the till. The roll should still be available for routine audit purposes. Work backwards and you’ll get to know whether there had been any discrimination. Then shout one way or the other.
It is sad to see how steep racial polarization is today. I’m Chinese but I am definitely OK if PH monitored the racial composition of its customers for its marketing purpose. If I have a business that serves halal food with all the proper certification and all that, why wouldn’t I want to find out that I’m still not attracting Malays? Be reasonable, everyone.
October 28, 2007 at 9:10 pm
I’m all for what Birdseye said.
It’s fun to believe in conspiracy theories, but this is not worth the time.
Show me a dine-in bill which excludes the 10% please.
And more power to Pizza Hut for engaging bloggers and their readers rather than vilifying them (aka Information Ministry)
October 29, 2007 at 2:10 pm
It’s most probably a hoax, a stupid one at that, but definitely better than that racist, malicious “Dr Ng Seng” crap.
In any case, Pizza Hut sucks, and is unhealthy with large amounts of saturated fat, adultered cheese and dubious service.
October 29, 2007 at 5:48 pm
I would take everything with a pinch of salt.
To me Pizza hut is still a joke.
I remember going to the PH at KLCC with a couple of friends few months back. While dining we ordered for “Air Panas” to drink. As efficient as they always are the staff only brought the Air Panas when we were getting ready to leave. So the glass of hot water was just left on the table as we left. The best part was when we got the bill. I got a shock when to see “AIR PANAS GILA” printed on the bill. I asked the staff there whether it was a joke, but they said that it was a computer generated bill and that is how they differentiate hot water from warm water…hahahahahahaha. Mr.Ding you are sharing the laughter with me? One of PH’s ideas of “an Enhanced Dine-In Concept”? what a joke. Imagine a foreigner dining there taking back the bill and putting it in a “Truly Asian Experience” article back home.
One of my friends infact wanted to make copies and sent one to the local media and also the internet decided otherwise as it wasn’t a nice thing to do.
And just for your info Mr. Ding i have been charged the 10% service charge for take away before, but then again i do not want to be at logger heads with you to prove myself right. As birdseye put it “This add-on is only a keystroke away so I would ask what internal control Mr Ding has in place to ensure that a cashier at any outlet will enter the 10% charge for every dine-in at PH”.
Anyways Mr.Ding, it’s now your word against our. Kindly do the needfull as to authenticate your your findings in documentation.
As for me, i’ve stopped going to pizza hut. I agree with Ahmno “In any case, Pizza Hut sucks, and is unhealthy with large amounts of saturated fat, adulterated cheese and dubious service”.
Have a nice day.
October 30, 2007 at 12:11 am
dear fellow bloggers,
thank you very much for your responses.
Again I must invite all those who are still in doubt to visit a pizza hut outlet and check your bill upon check out(dine in or takeaway)so that you are seeing the bill for yourselves and not rely on hearsay.
May I reiterate here that we DO NOT profile our customers. We also DO NOT charge 10% service charge for Takeaway orders.
The Point of Sale machine (or POS or Cash Register)is actually a very sophiticated computer network. It contains all Our menu items on sale in the restaurant and it auto calculates the bill(all the items and the sales tax and service charge where applicable) at the end of the order process.
We cannot sell items NOT in the menu because there is no price to charge our customer if the item not in our menu list in the computer.
When our crew takes the customer’s order, the first mandatory field of entry to key in is ‘Dine-In or Takeaway’.
It is a mandatory entry field before the crew can proceed to the next level.
For Dine-In, the crew have to enter the Table No of the customer; then the no of diners; then the items ordered;
and finally the settlement.
For TakeAway customers,
the crew Have TO enter ‘TakeAway’; then items ordered and then the settlement.
The computer auto calculates the 5% sales tax and 10% Service Charge (for Dine In bills) and without the latter for TakeAway bills.
Crews CANNOT manipulate the cash register. It is password protected. These are all DEFAULT checks and balances programmed into the computer. Otherwise anyone can manipulate the cash till too!
You must understand, if the crew can manipulate the order like what was alleged, Pizza Hut will go out of business in no time as the crew can pocket the money he or she collects by manipulating the orders made by the customers!
We invested millions of Ringgit in our Cash Register system because it has to be secure, accurate and reliable. It provides an audit trail for every transaction conducted…including all the mistakes made by the crew!
So rest be assured that the computer is colour and creed blind, it does not discriminate (selective 10% service charging) and it performs the order taking as it has been programmed.
My final appeal, please visit a pizza hut restaurant and place a simple order to see for yourself and not rely on the hearsay.
Thank you very much for staying engaged with me on this issue.
Cheers
lawrence ding
senior general manager
pizza hut restaurant malaysia berhad
019 3298687
or write me!
lawrence.ding@pizzahut.com.my
October 30, 2007 at 9:02 am
Birdseye,
You remark on “publication of the complainant’s email without adequate verification of the facts”. Well, the facts and the conspiracy theories have been floating about for over a year now. It is apparently Pizza Hut that’s been unable to satisfactorily lay the issue to rest.
Haris’ beef with PH is the ‘RACE’ cell printed on its sales docket. It’s perfectly true that bills in just such a format were issued to customers.
This ethnic categorisation is a subjective evaluation: The waiter takes a look at the customer and decides if he is Malay, Chinese, Indian, Melanau, Bidayuh, Kadazan, Kenyah, Kayan, Kelabit or what not, and marks ‘O’ or ‘C’ or whatever alphabet he thinks appropriate. If a Chinese customer walks in with his Indian wife and their ‘sawo matang’ (the colour of ciku) children, then I suppose the waiter would find himself in a pickle.
In all of Mr Lawrence Ding’s five responses to People’s Parliament, not once has he clarified which months in 2006 this RACE bill was in use. ‘Carboncopy’ made a pertinent comment: “A piece of advice for Lawrence Ding. If your company is to collect data for a mere 3 months, I don’t think it is wise for the company to design the order form with the Race cell included permanently. Which evidently is still being used.”
Mr Ding claims that the docket was used sometime when PH affected its ‘Brand Strategy’ moving from fast food to dine-in concept. He has thus far still failed to address the matter of chronology, tallying the duration the dockets were circulated with the re-branding period.
So when exactly did PH instruct its staff to black out the RACE particular? Mr Ding claims the survey was a short-term project. The impression I get is that crossing the word with marker pen was a reaction to public outcry last year; otherwise PH would not have bothered to put a stop to the practice.
Could the exercise have been implemented for longer than three months? How many hundreds of thousands of dockets were printed because as ‘Carboncopy’ writes: “As of end of last year (2006), Pizza Hut branch at Jaya Jusco Skudai is still collecting racial data on the order form albeit with word Race blacked out. The Race cell was still filled with the letter “C” clearly representing Chinese/Cina customer.”
It would be helpful in tamping down speculation if only Mr Ding would clearly provide us the dates.
Birdseye, you also remark “It is sad to see how steep racial polarization is today”. Here is where I’m with Haris, and for us this is the crux of the PH storm in the teacup.
Haris says: “I took exception to the fact that waitering staff, usually young, were being asked to profile or categorise customers by race.” Whereas I say: “Clearly PH’s corporate outlook is part of the ‘race sensitivity’ problem & not contributing to its solution.”
Animah says: “I suggest that we keep pushing back whenever we see outlets or products referring to race. It has become so entrenched, that they do this without thinking. Keep challenging and keep the pressure on. Some of them will change.”
Some will change but PH is not showing any signs that it has even grasped the reason why some of us find its PR & Research approach unacceptable. Mr Ding has replied with five defensive self-justifications. In them, he repeatedly asserts PH is ‘a good corporate citizen’, a ‘law abiding company’, an ‘honest company’, etc.
However, in all of Mr Ding’s explanations, I do not see that he has even acknowledged the company hatched a bad idea to begin with. Would Pizza Hut have printed something similar in multi-racial USA for any supposed collation of data?
And Mr Ding proclaims above in this present blog thread: “So rest be (sic) assured that the computer is colour and creed blind”. The cash register may not be creed-conscious but PH certainly was in teaching its young staff to see through race-coloured lenses.
October 30, 2007 at 10:11 am
Ding has ably described the Point of Sale (POS) system in use at PH, a system which is quite common throughout the restaurant industry. However, it does not resolve my very simple question.
This part of Ding’s response is key to the question I had posed: “When our crew takes the customer’s order, the first mandatory field of entry to key in is ‘Dine-In or Takeaway’. It is a mandatory entry field before the crew can proceed to the next level.”
My question was “What check is in place to ensure that a dine-in is not treated as a takeaway?”.
It is not the computer that determines this. It is the human behind the machine. So if by mistake or ‘by design when required’ a dine-in is treated as takeaway, the computer will not produce the 10%. And everyone goes home happy except for the complainant, aka Hoaxer de Clumsy. I think the truth is PH, nor any other establishment for that matter, can prevent such an error or ’special design errors’. This is why I think only a sample test of the order dockets for Malay customers (if the outlet’s copies have not been thrown away) against the tally roll is needed to evaluate whether the staff at Sunway Pyramid are error prone or something untoward is being practiced at the particular outlet. Merely angling the razzmatazz in an POS system is not going to impress skeptics that PH are goody two-shoes.
Incidentally, I simply do not believe that racial discrimination runs through the corporate veins of PH. Ding and Gang do not sound like stupid people (the same may not be said for some of our Ministers). Based on the reasons I laid out in my earlier post, I think this was a very clumsy hoax. Alarm bells should have rung loudly…..DING DING DING DING DING!(forgive the pun, Lawrence).
I’m sorry that PH has to deal with this POS (I mean Piece of Shit) but that’s what you get when bloggers run amok and publish unverified hoaxes. But I still admire bloggers for the trouble they take to give us, lesser mortals, the opportunity to express our feelings and to know there is ‘AIR PANAS GILA’ at PH. Haris’ effort to save the judiciary is highly commendable.
Lighten up people. Things could be much worse than a pizza “with large amounts of saturated fat, adulterated cheese and dubious service”. I only said it was expensive.
October 30, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Helen,
Let me first say that I DO NOT condone racial profiling if it is intended for an evil, or even useless, purpose.
You know there are countless government-issued forms which ask for race and I truly hate that. Normally, I would leave that box blank, primarily because I do not understand the need for this information on that particular form. In PH’s case, I can accept what they did if such information was to help them figure out what they needed to do in their marketing efforts. Perhaps they could have been more tactful. It tells them quite accurately, save for possible classification errors on your ’sawo matangs’, just what the Chinese and Indians think of them (presently not much, I’d guess). Heck, with the millions they have spent on the software, it should also be able to tell them what drinks or food items are disliked by race or by all. Otherwise, they’ve bought some really expensive crap.
You said: “Haris’ beef with PH is the ‘RACE’ cell printed on its sales docket. It’s perfectly true that bills in just such a format were issued to customers.”
No one says this is cell is imagined. My point is why they were collecting this information. All Hoaxer de Clumsy did was to furnish a docket for a dine-in group of 7 Chinese customers. ‘The fact’ as supplied by de Clumsy does not even begin to proof that PH is giving Malays a free pass on the 10%. Now, if de Clumsy were to forward an order docket for a dine-in Malay customer together with the printed receipt that does not show the 10%, I will gladly join anyone who wants to raze PH to the ground.
However, if your beef is that the mere presence of a RACE cell is a definite ‘No-No’ anywhere, I suggest WE do battle with the government as well. Their forms are full of it. Surely it can’t be that while we abhor the situation where “waitering staff, usually young, were being asked to profile or categorize customers by race” it is alright if we were to fill in the C or M ourselves.
The fact that this saga is continuing lends weight to your comment that “apparently Pizza Hut that’s been unable to satisfactorily lay the issue to rest”. I must admit that I am totally unimpressed when a general manager of an organization regurgitates those pompous, ‘corporately correct’ statements like “We are the best corporate citizens bar none”. It bores me to death. In my previous post, I have indicated that PH’s super duper system can never prevent staff hanky-panky and I hope that Ding will carry out an audit just to satisfy him and us that no staff went over and beyond the call of duty on that dreaded ‘RACE’ cell. I am stretching the string as far as possible for Hoaxer de Clumsy.
Helen, Ding seems a reasonable fellow. If you were to limit your demands to those absolutely necessary, just what must PH do to satisfy you that, all along, they had no evil intentions so we can leave this issue and concentrate on getting Haris to run in the next General elections? I’m done.
Birdseye,
If you read one of my comments to one of the comments to the first posting, I made it clear that I did not believe the ‘discrimination on the service tax’ thing but was concerned about young Malaysians being asked to profile people according to race.
I am dead set against this and it does not help that the private sector is adding to the the government’s and politicians continued profiling of the citizenry by race and religion.
Please read one of my postings entitled ‘Project Irrelevant’.
For a long time now, I have rejected any attempt, whether public or private sector, to profile me by race, religion or gender.
Sometimes, I feel it is an uphill task.
If more people would reject any form of such profiling…
Haris to run in the next elections?
I would rather work on the ground with civil society to help garner support for brave and patriotic individuals who, in the name of national service, it is hoped, will be prepared, albeit reluctantly, to offer themselves as candidates in the next elections.
Look out for future postings entitled ‘The reluctant politician’ and ‘A few good men ( & women )’.
October 30, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Hi folks,
Regarding the “Project Irrelevant’, just a bit of sharing.
I didn’t know that yesterday, when I stepped into a building to register as a new member, I would face the Project Irrelevant Test.
The membership form did not ask for race but it asked for religion and immediately my mind went into a dialogue by itself:
“If I answer, I have failed in making my stand. If I don’t, the personnel will raise the matter with the other people around her and all eyes will be on me. Oh! Oh! And what is the word ‘irrelevant’ in BM? ”
Talk about blank minds!
What did I do? I left the section blank.
The personnel took the form from me and began to key in the information. She handed back the form to me and said, “You didn’t fill in for religion.”
I heard myself say, “No need” and I looked her straight in the eye.
She looked at me, took the form back without a word and completed what she was doing.
I received my receipt for membership fee and was given the membership manual.
I walked on air.
Farida,
Way to go.
October 30, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Birdseye,
I do not credit the conspiracy theories. My beef (or ’siew yoke’) is strictly as expressed in my posts, and to answer your query “just what must PH do to satisfy you that, all along, they had no evil intentions” (I do see the wicked humour in your Q.) — my response: the clarification sought as mentioned in the thread addressed to you.
Having said that, you write well, rationally & enjoyably too. Glad that you’ve made a visit to People’s Parliament & I certainly look forward to your participation here & reading future comments from you. Salaam & yes, trying to lighten up.
October 31, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Dear Mr.Ding,
just my two cents…
From what i’ve read in this thread so far i gather that the members of the people’s parliament are making their stand against racial polarization and segregation be in it whatever form or context (dockets, check boxes, columns, articles, comments etc). It is of my opinion that whichever approach you’re goung to take, racial or racially inclined matters do not make very good debate topics and has brought about much calamities (i.e artcle 11 discussion). An apology, a promise to look into the matters concerned and to do the needfull would be the kind of response that people look forward to. So i would suggest that you do the needfull as to verify your study/survey/research findings ( which i assume would reveal lots of shortfalls if verified by some of our very learned friends here) and try to make the needfull changes as to your possible means. As for the topic of the 10% service charge i think it’s a very arguable matter as it all depends on the staff operating the cash machine and is susceptible and prone to manipulation (i.e: By Keying in take away to a friend or family member who dined at the outlet).
cheers