Pizza Hut New Zealand is using a service where customers can order pizza by sending a SMS with their orders.

According to the Ericsson Mobilty World website, the project was developed by Daqsquirt. Julian Smith, General Manager of Datasquirt, says: "Extensive market research has resulted in this unique service, which perfectly complements Pizza Hut's position in the fast-food market. Using Datasquirt's patent-pending WAM-E and TEXTCODE technologies, the service is fully automated and completely integrated into Pizza Hut's national database infrastructure and logistics processes."

SMS ordering now makes up 6% of all Pizza Hut orders in New Zealand and 25% of orders from mobile phones. Pizza Hut chose text messaging to capture more market share and increase brand awareness. This tactic has worked: 50% of SMS purchasers had no previous relationship with Pizza Hut.

Seamless integration ensures all SMS orders are handled and fulfilled in real-time. In addition to the systems automation, Datasquirt has also developed and deployed an SMS customer service interface into Pizza Hut's contact centre, to provide further support for SMS orders.

Datasquirt's solution is currently being sold to other Pizza Hut operations in Australia and the United Kingdom and has been approved for global patent protection.