“Why don't customers know when their food arrives after ordering?”

Real-time tracking was the obvious answer, but too heavy to implement across 40+ stores at this stage. So I reframed: instead of tracking, give customers a sense of progress.

We quick-brainstormed the maximum waiting time and sketched a delivery flow (an animated progress bar illustrated with the pizza-making steps). It moved in a fun way, reduced the anxiety of waiting, and required no backend changes.

We could not run user interviews at this stage for internal reasons, but both solutions were grounded in UX best practices and measurable post-launch: fewer complaint calls to customer service became the signal. It worked.

To the C-level, those sharp problem-solving decisions, made on the spot, were exactly what left them confident handing UX to me.