Forty small orders, forty formats
The retailer orders come through EDI. Everything else comes in however the customer likes. A deli emails a list: two cases of the chutney, one of the red onion one, and whatever you have in the new flavour. A caterer sends a PDF from their purchasing system. A farm shop texts the sales manager on a Sunday. Someone rings the office and asks for the usual.
Customer services reads each one, works out which product the customer means, types the order into Sage or your ERP, and hopes the Sunday text got forwarded.
Why small orders take so long
Independent customers do not use your product codes. They describe products the way they see them on the shelf, and they assume you remember what the usual is. Each order is small, but translating it is where the time goes.
- Products are described by name, flavour or shelf position, not code.
- Orders arrive in several inboxes and personal phones.
- The usual order lives in the customer services team's memory.
- Minimum order values and delivery days are checked by hand.
- Order confirmations are not always sent, so mistakes appear on delivery.
What the retyping costs
Hours of customer services time on low-value orders. Errors: the wrong flavour, a case taken as a unit, an order missed because it went to someone's personal phone. Customers who ring to check an order has been received. And growth in independent accounts, which is often good margin, turns into more typing.
Order capture we build
- Orders sent to a shared email address, including PDF and spreadsheet attachments, are read automatically. Texts and WhatsApp messages sent to a business number can be collected the same way.
- An AI step, using a model such as Anthropic Claude or OpenAI, reads each message and matches the customer and each product description to your product list, using that customer's order history to resolve things like the usual.
- A draft order is created with each line marked as matched or uncertain, and checked against minimum order values and that customer's delivery days.
- A person in customer services reviews the draft, fixes anything uncertain and approves it into Sage, Xero or your ERP.
- An order confirmation goes to the customer, listing exactly what will be delivered.
- Customers who prefer can use a simple trade ordering page with their own product list, previous orders and delivery days.
| Order arrives as | What happens |
|---|---|
| Email with a list | Read and drafted for review |
| PDF from a caterer's system | Extracted and drafted |
| Text or WhatsApp | Collected from a business number |
| Phone call | Entered on a quick form with history shown |
| Trade ordering page | Arrives already structured |
What customer services gets
Orders drafted and waiting, with the uncertain lines highlighted. Checking replaces typing. Confirmations go out automatically, so customers stop ringing to check and mistakes are caught before the van leaves. And the independent side of the business can grow without adding to the typing.
Order history becomes useful too. With every independent customer's orders in one record, sales can see who has not ordered for a few weeks, which customers are trying new lines and which ones only ever buy one product, and follow up with a reason to call.
Sales managers stop being the order desk on their own phones at weekends. Orders sent to the business number are in the queue on Monday morning with everything else, and the sales manager can see them without having to forward anything.
Is this your order desk?
- Small trade orders arrive by email, phone, text and PDF.
- Customers order by product name rather than code.
- Some orders go to personal phones.
- Customers ring to check their order was received.
- Orders are retyped into your accounts or ERP system.