Four drivers, twelve bags and a whiteboard
Your own orders and phone orders need delivering, and you have three or four drivers on a Friday. The bags line up on the shelf with addresses written on the tickets. Whoever walks back in grabs the next two. Sometimes those are at opposite ends of town while two other bags for the same street sit waiting for the next driver.
A customer rings to ask where their order is. Nobody knows which driver has it or where that driver is. Someone rings the driver, who is driving, and who says ten minutes. It is twenty-five.
At the end of the night the drivers hand in cash and slips, and working out who did how many drops, for their pay and mileage, is another job.
Why dispatch is guesswork
Dispatch in most takeaways is done by the most experienced person on the counter, in their head. They know the town and they are good at it, when they have time to think. On a busy night they have no time, and the rule collapses to first come, first served.
There is also no link between the kitchen and the road. The kitchen does not know when a driver will be back, so it cooks in order of arrival rather than in order of when the food can actually leave. Food sits under the lamp while a driver is still out, or the driver waits at the counter while the order is still in the fryer.
The cost of first come, first served
| What happens | What it costs |
|---|---|
| Bags for the same area split across drivers | Extra trips and longer waits |
| Food ready with no driver back | Orders arriving cold, then complaints |
| No idea where a driver is | Counter time spent on where-is-my-order calls |
| Paper drop counts | Disputes over driver pay and mileage |
| One person doing dispatch | Nights that fall apart when they are off |
It also caps how many delivery orders you can take. When dispatch is chaos, the easiest fix is to stop taking direct deliveries at peak, which sends customers back to the apps.
A dispatch screen and a driver app
- Every order that needs your own driver, from your website, phone orders or apps where you deliver yourself, appears on a dispatch screen with its address, ready time and promised time.
- The screen suggests groupings: orders going to the same area that will be ready close together. The dispatcher confirms or changes them with a tap.
- Each driver has a simple phone app. They see their drops in a sensible order, tap to open navigation, and mark each one delivered. Cash orders show the amount to collect.
- Driver locations, shared from the app while they are on shift, appear on a map, so the counter can answer where-is-my-order calls with a real answer.
- When a driver is heading back, the kitchen screen shows it, so orders can be timed to finish when a driver will be there to take them.
- Customers get a text when their order leaves, and at the end of the night each driver's drops, cash and distance are listed for pay and cash-up.
Dispatch software exists off the shelf, and for some takeaways it is the right answer. We look at what you use now and tell you whether to buy, build or combine.
A Friday night with dispatch in place
Orders stack up on the screen by area. The dispatcher sees three drops close together that will be ready within a few minutes of each other and gives them to the next driver back. The driver's phone lists them in order. When a customer rings, the counter can see the driver is two streets away. At close, the drivers' sheet is already done.
- Drops grouped by area rather than by arrival
- Food timed to driver returns
- Real answers to where-is-my-order calls
- Driver drop counts and cash ready at close
Does your dispatch run like this?
- Drivers grab whichever bags are next, regardless of area.
- You ring drivers to find out where they are.
- Food waits under the lamp for a driver to come back.
- Driver pay is worked out from paper slips.
- Busy nights depend on one person who knows how to dispatch.