LPRC - CrimeScience Episode 41 – Food Delivery Safety & Security ft. Van Carney (Domino’s Pizza)

Episode Date: April 21, 2020

This LPRC CrimeScience episode, featuring Van Carney, Director of Loss Prevention, Safety and Security at Domino’s Pizza, covers food delivery and its evolution,  COVID-19’s effects on business, driver safety, and how companies protect their employees and customers. The post CrimeScience Episode 41 – Food Delivery Safety & Security ft. Van Carney (Domino’s Pizza) appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we aim to explore the science of crime and the practical application of the science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners, as well as other professionals. Co-host Dr. Reid Hayes of the Loss Prevention Research Council and Tom Meehan of ControlTech discuss a wide range of topics with industry experts, thought leaders, solution providers, and many more. We would like to thank Bosch for making this episode possible. Take advantage of the advanced video capabilities offered by Bosch to help reduce your shrink risk. Integrate video recordings with point of sale data for visual verification of transactions and exception reporting. Use video analytics for immediate notification of important AP related events and leverage analytics metadata for fast forensic searches for evidence and to improve merchandising and operations. Learn more about extending your video system beyond simple surveillance in zones one through

four of LPRC's zones of influence by visiting Bosch online at boschsecurity.com. Welcome everybody to another episode of Crime Science, the podcast. Today I'm joined by a professional security and loss prevention asset protection professional that I've known for several years now, Van Carney of Domino's. And every time I've had a conversation with Van, it's been beyond informative. The issues that he's dealt with over the years, while at one time they were a little unique, At one time, they were a little unique. I think increasingly the delivery component of all retailing and restaurant has obviously dramatically changed really in the last three to five years and no more than right now during the COVID-19 situation. So I thought it'd be very timely and I believe very informative for all of us to spend a few minutes here talking with Van about this.

So, Van, if I could, let's kind of launch into it and talk a little bit about, first, let's start, lay down some baseline here. What's some of the history of food delivery? How's it evolved, and why pizza and Asian food? Why did that lead the way? and Asian food? Why did that lead the way? Well, first off, Ray, let me say thank you for inviting me to be on your podcast and spend a few minutes with you and then others that may have an opportunity to listen to this. What I would say first and foremost is that we at Domino's and myself, our heart goes out to many, many folks in our industry, especially the restaurant business that we're in. Not everyone has been as fortunate as we have been at Domino's. We actually started

the delivery business way back in the day. Our founder, who's no longer with the company, started the delivery business in 1960, and it really took off when he changed the name from Dominick's to Domino's in 1963. But I do want to just take a minute and say that I hope folks are staying safe and healthy. And for those that have had issues, again, our hearts, Reed, go out to those those because I hope that we can continue to work through this crisis. Certainly, the way that delivery and food service once was has been changed completely. We can possibly get into that a little bit later if you want. But in terms of the question that you asked about how it all got started, our founder was very innovative.

He was a hardworking individual that had been in the Marines. He got out of the Marines, started a family, was working a full-time job, needed to make extra money like most people. And he and his brother started working at a pizzeria in a little town called Ypsilanti, Michigan. When he first started, what the founder wanted to do is he wanted to be able to deliver food to colleges. And he wanted to be able to get it to them fresh, fast, and hot. So he started several years later after he started his company, he coined the 30-minute guarantee. And that really took off because people wanted food delivery fast. His whole thought process was he would be able to get a very good price if he was delivering to colleges. So he opened up his first two stores in Ypsilanti.

Then he opened up his third store in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the corporate office is today. Domino's took off because no one else had really coined food delivery. And so that's really how it began. And it has prospered over the years to the point that we now have over 17,000 stores globally. In terms of the 30-minute guarantee that I spoke about, that I spoke about. Unfortunately, there was a severe auto accident that took place back in the late 70s. A verdict was reached that was $78 million verdict in 1989. And part of the agreement in terms of the settlement was to no longer have the 30-minute guarantee. And what really transpired after that is that folks at the company in the operational aspect of the business said we need to be able to expedite the speed of making a pizza in the store.

So at one point, on average, it would take about one minute to take the order when it was called in. Now we have online ordering where the order is called in through a computer, but it pops up on a screen. That saves a minute. It takes about a minute to make a pizza because our folks are well-trained. We have what is a three-day onboarding for all team members, and then there are different positions, customer service rep, a driver. We have four different levels of assistant managers. Ultimately, then you can work your way into a GM and continue to be promoted up. But with the sound operation that we have, it's easily done to make a pizza within a minute the way that we are set up in our restaurants. Then it takes six and a half minutes

to bake the pizza. You put it on a hot rack to be able to pick that by the driver. And we're able, in most cases, depending, of course, how busy we are, still to have the delivery hot, fresh, and safely delivered within 17 minutes. We no longer say 30-minute guarantee. We say anywhere from 35 to 40 minutes, if that is going to be the true time of the delivery. So it just kind of gives you an idea read of how innovative over the years that we have been to try to continue to increase the speed in the store and not on the streets. One of the phrases that we've coined a long time ago is hustle on your feet, not on the street. So I hope that answers that question for

you. That blows that question away. That was good. Fantastic start. And including obviously, Van, your best wishes to everybody in the world. I mean, we're all in this thing together. So fantastic background, laying the groundwork for the discussion. Now let's talk about our side of the business, right? The crime science side, but how you work to protect your people, your customers. But what are some of the issues that you deal with and how do you sort of assess them and you and your team come up with and execute plans around the issues that you've got as far as people and place protection? Well, I have to kind of back up and say that, you know, my team is a team that supports folks within the brand. And that would be across all of our divisions. within the brand, and that would be across all of our divisions. One of the things that we say when you're in the corporate office and you're in a staff role like we say is that if you don't

bake, make, or take it, you support those that do. So we do support all of our different units, including all of our domestic stores, our World Resource Center, our supply chains, and even international. What I would say to lead into your question, though, is that we all have to be working together. And we have an outstanding group of leaders that have helped us start to work through this crisis. And I think it's important to say that it all really starts at the top. And we're having weekly calls, weekly communications with all of our franchisees. And just today, right before I jumped on this call, we had a call with all of our corporate employees and our CEO said a couple of things

that I think it's worth mentioning because this week he was on CNBC and he said, we as a brand, we're going to continue to do the right thing. We're going to put people first. You know, another thing that he said, and they're doing it, just like you and I spending time on this podcast, he has stepped up communications. A majority of the corporate office, if not almost all, are working from home. Our stores are still open. Our distribution centers are still open.

The government, fortunately, deemed us as an essential food provider, and we've taken that to heart, and we've put many, many measures that I can speak about in place if you would like for me to do that. But, you know, we're trying to strike a balance, quite honestly, for me to do that. But, you know, we're trying to strike a balance, quite honestly, being optimistic, but kind of realizing that at this point, you know, our world has changed. We just don't know how long this thing is going to last. But one of the things that we've tried to do is we've created a couple of programs called contactless delivery. We started that. We did have some opportunity to learn from what our international master franchisees were doing in some of the hotspots initially before

COVID-19 came to the states. We also have contactless carryout as well. One of the items that we've been trying to do is communicate to the communities about the new advertising initiatives that we have. And there are really two. One, we want to reassure that we keep all of our team members and our stores and our customers safe. And so we put many guidelines in place to do that. Secondly, you know, as I've indicated, we're fortunate, we're blessed. And so we continue to try to offer opportunity to people. You know, we're trying to hire 10,000 plus people, depending on the market area. I mentioned all of that because we have to continue to support those folks that are out in the stores. So, you know, we continue to do our webinars.

We continue to have my team that have regionals that still go into markets that they're located in to help our stores, whether it be the training to make sure that people continue to be educated on how to drive safe, to work safely in stores. From the standpoint of crime, you know, I keep track with all of the incidents that take place. There are really, I guess, you know, a couple of incidents that we track very closely. One would be in-store robberies. The other would be driver robberies. From the standpoint of tracking of this, the requirements that we have for our corporate stores is that all incidents are to be called in to our safety hotline. hotline. As of this past Monday, we have a slight increase of driver robbery, but the number is still insignificant in our corporate stores. In terms of in-store robbery, we have a 78%

decrease. And I'm proud to say that, and that's from this year to last year, as of this past Monday, we've done an awful lot of training to prepare our folks on what to look out for. We have put in excellent technology to try to prevent robbery from occurring, such as cameras placed in certain areas of the store, including on the outside, whether it be the front or the back of the store. We believe that's a deterrent, but in the event that it happens, we're able to react to that, and we're able to burn video quickly to get it to the police. And we then work with our corporate partners to try to make an arrest as quickly as possible to calm the nerves of those that work in the store. We do the same thing if we're called upon on our franchise side.

I do track the in-store robberies of our franchisees. of our franchisees. They can call into our safety hotline or we track it off social media and we then follow up to see if there's anything that we can do to help. One of the things that we do as well is we offer a reward. Depending on the severity of the issue, we offer a reward up to $2,500 for arrest and conviction. We asked our franchisees match that. And if the police department wants our help or Crimestoppers, we will work with them to try to make arrests. So in terms of actual robbery, we are not currently really seeing an uptick. I have talked to many of my peers and other businesses. There are a few hotspots right now working with many of my peers and those that are really members of the RLPSA, Restaurant Loss Prevention Security Association. We have put a task force together on a hotspot

that we have currently, which is down in Houston. That's the only area that I'm aware of where we have seen an uptick with robbery, along with break-ins that are occurring. But we continue to have issues around the U.S., but nothing that has really been greatly accelerated because of this crisis to date. In terms of the other area that we stay focused in on is still continuing to try to make sure that we protect our profits, both of our corporate stores as well as our franchisees. My team of analysts continue to work from home, looking in our exception-based reporting,

identifying theft that's taking place. At that point, we are able, because we own many stores, to go ahead and do an investigation from beginning to end to make sure that we can determine exactly what happened. And if it's theft that took place, we do pursue prosecution and we follow through with that. In terms of franchisees, we help them identify their losses. We advise them who we think it could be. We ask them to do an investigation. We want to be able to protect our royalty stream, and we ask them that they follow up. And then if not, we continue to work with our franchise leadership to make sure that they address those issues to try to protect not just our royalty stream, but also their profits as well.

So those are two unique things that I think we continue to do, Reed. And that was fantastic insight and feedback and understanding back a little bit and looking at, all right, you're looking for clusters of issues through the RLPSA, which is a fantastic group of leaders like yourselves from self-serve, quick serve, full serve, and so on, restaurants working together. van that many, many of our almost 70 retail chains continually identify Houston as a hotspot for a lot of things, including armed robbery and burglary. And so that's why our team goes down there periodically to work with them on the issue. So I think the other part that was very enlightening was from the top down at your organization and the bottom up, the changes you've looked at and made, the fact that you did get a little bit of a heads up, but you took advantage of that by some of your franchisees and operators overseas that

were engulfed before we were here. I think those were pretty interesting insights. Let me ask you if I could, Van, if you were, let's say Domino's was now going, was just starting to adopt delivery, your own delivery or using third party, like many of our restaurant, excuse me, our retailers are, what are some things that you would be thinking about and doing to, I guess, institute good measures, good practices around, all right, who do we need delivering? What do they need to know? What are some tactics to be better at delivering, but also, of course, better at self-protection as well as safeguarding the person you're delivering to? Any thoughts around that would be helpful. as well as safeguarding the person you're delivering to.

Any thoughts around that would be helpful. I think that anyone that's going to get into the delivery business, there are different risks that are associated with that compared to, let's say, fast, casual, or just a sit-down. And there are really probably three areas that someone would want to develop programming around. I spoke about robbery briefly. You also have the delivery, if you're going to have your own delivery drivers, you have the opportunity for injury to take place, injury to take place, whether it be walking up to a delivery address, coming back from a delivery address, slipping, tripping, falling, injuring yourself. And then the largest concern in liability would be the auto liability. I spoke about that early on about how Domino's had

done away with our 30-minute guarantee domestically just based on a large claim. So you have to have programming around that. But it really even starts before that. I think it starts in the hiring process. You know, you've got to make sure that, you know, you're doing your due diligence and who you're bringing into your company. You need to run at certain levels of employment, criminal background checks. You certainly need to run in the delivery business, motor vehicle checks on everyone that is going to be delivering. And then it starts with the training. I mentioned earlier about our three-day onboarding training. You want to be able to make sure that before you

even have them make a delivery, they understand how the entire operation works and how you want to make sure that when they're making that delivery that they're driving safe so they do not create injury for themselves or someone else. And you want them to ultimately get back to the store safely. You know, the way we view it is we want everyone to have a safe delivery, and we believe the safest delivery of all is when they deliver them safely at their home after working their shift. That's excellent. Any specific tips? It's night or day, but it's night. It's in whatever area of the community. Are there any tactics or things to think about for the drivers? Okay, you approach this way or you park this way or I'm just thinking out loud. Are there any tactics that come to mind that might be helpful as well? Are there any tactics that come to mind that might be helpful as well? We do have one tactic, and it's really hard to enforce, but we would want folks to back into parking spots for when they pull out, they can see clear view in front of them. instead of backing up and potentially not seeing someone walking behind the vehicle

or maybe something that has fallen down, let's say like a customer child's bike as an example. I would say the other aspect of safe delivery, it deals with something that we've been faced with and we've actually created many training items around this, which would be the distracted driving of cell phones. That seems to be one of the biggest issues. And, you know, we put programs together to try to create awareness to that. We have different training modules that we have in place. that. We have different training modules that we have in place. We actually have a module for safety in the store. We have a module for defensive driving. We have a module for prevention of in-store robbery, and we have a module for prevention of driver robbery.

And we think that these tools, if they're put in place, can certainly reduce risk and make sure that those that are making the deliveries understand that there are guidelines that they need to follow. In addition, one of the requirements that we have is that if it is a first-time customer or if it is a suspicious order. Suspicious order could be where someone called and changed the address. We want the driver, before they leave the store and then before they get out of their vehicle, to do a callback to confirm the order. So that's very important. In the event it's in a market where there may have been concern or if there's belief through obtaining crime information from police departments that it's a high-risk area,

we have procedures centered around that. We want to be able to deliver to everyone, but if it deals with delivery safety, we have certain requirements in our corporate stores that we want to review, and we suggest very strongly that our franchisees follow that best practice as well. One of those would be that we want all incidents to be called into our safety hotline. We have a system that's in place. It's called Origami. It's a tracking system, but it's one that's very fluent to where we can change on the spot any type of data that we want to collect because we're very data-driven in my department, just like we are at Domino's for our entire brand.

One item that I've just recently added, because it is a concern now that we don't know what's going to happen when we get through COVID-19, but when we do re-entry back into having people out and about again, many folks are going to be wearing masks coming into our stores. We're now going to track the robberies that we have and whether or not they had a mask or not a mask. It's too soon to tell if there will be an increase of in-store robbery. But that is just one item that we're going to put in place, and that's because that is one of the items that we want to try to track by having incidents called into our hotline and we're able to see these types of trends. Secondly, it's very important that I think any retail business, any restaurant business, that you want to be able to develop a relationship with

your law enforcement partners. You want to be able to know who they are in case you need them in time of need, but you also want to be able to get their crime data so you can help make an assessment as to what's actually happening in the community. Is there an increase of robbery in certain areas or not? That can dictate what time do you deliver up to? Could it be eight o'clock? Could it be midnight? Or maybe you decide due to safety because of other issues the police have advised us about, maybe we don't deliver there, but we offer a discount for the customer to come and pick up carryout. Thirdly, we want to be able to use a third-party company solution provider to be able to obtain demographic data as well. And there are many of those companies out there, not to advertise one or two, but we do use one specifically to be able to get our data

that we can help us make the best business decision on whether or not we want to change that delivery practice. And then lastly, we want to evaluate and learn from each other. We always want to try to see what other folks that are in the delivery business, what are they doing? Are they limiting delivery in a particular area? And if so, why? And so we work very hard to make sure that just like we're talking today with you, Reid, we want to be able to share information with one another so we can make sound business decisions to make sure that all of our people do get home safely at night. Yet more good insight, and I like how you ended that with those insights with, again, it's people first, people always. The best delivery is your safe delivery back home

after your workday, your shift. The data-driven component, as you know, warms my heart, Van, and I know that you are a huge believer and user of data, as is your overall organization, to be more focused, be more effective, to do the right thing. So these are all good insights, and a lot of good bullet points there, I think, for our listeners that are contemplating or have been moved very rapidly into delivery with almost zero experience in the area. A lot of good insights in how you look at it, what you're doing to keep everybody as safe as is possible, given the risk and limitations that are out there. So this has been fantastic insight. Is there anything else you think that we should know? Because you answered my last

question as well that I had queued up, and that was, all right, coming out of this, what are you doing to look at what the new normal might be? Well, you went back to data. You're saying, hey, what are the effects of masks going to be and so forth on robbery or other risks that we might have? So any other thoughts, Van, that the listener might need to know as we head on out? Well, I would love to be able to have anyone reach out to me personally if they want to talk offline more about how I might be able to give some additional insight. Reid, I really appreciate what you do. I really appreciate what the LPRC is doing. I think this organization is an excellent organization to share information based off data.

I'm glad to be part of it. And I really appreciate you giving me an opportunity to be part of this. And just as I opened, I'll close with the fact that I hope everyone will be safe and can stay healthy. And I look forward to speaking with you again at some point in the near future when I'll see you at one of our conferences. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, man. Safety to you and your loved ones. And thank you everybody for joining us today on this special episode of Crime Science, the podcast.

Everybody stay safe. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science podcast presented by the Laws Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more Crime Science episodes

and valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the LF's Prevention Research Council.