The pad by the phone
The phone rings. You grab the pad and the pen that works. Two chicken tikka, one keema naan, the lamb, no wait, make that the chicken, pilau rice, poppadoms. Address? You write it at the top. You add it up in your head, say a total, and the customer says it was cheaper last week. You tear off the slip, carry it through and stick it on the rail.
An hour later the driver cannot read the house number. The customer said flat 3 but the slip says 8. The keema naan was never cooked because the chef read it as plain. The total was wrong because the meal deal price changed last month and the pad does not know that.
Why the phone line stays on paper
Phone orders are often from the older regulars and the local customers who have ordered from you for years. They are a loyal and valuable channel, and they are handled with the least technology in the building. The till may technically support phone orders, but typing a full order and an address into it with a customer on the line is slower than writing, so staff write.
Paper also has no memory. The same customer rings every Saturday with the same order and the same address, and every Saturday the whole thing is written out from scratch, with fresh chances for a mistake.
Where paper orders go wrong
| Error | How it shows up |
|---|---|
| Misheard or misread item | Wrong dish cooked, remake or complaint |
| Hand-added total | Undercharging, or an argument at the door |
| Illegible address | Driver lost, food late, calls back to the shop |
| Lost slip | An order nobody cooked |
| No record | Phone sales missing from the night's figures |
Phone orders also do not show up anywhere useful. They do not appear in your delivery app reports, so you cannot see how much of your trade still comes by phone, or who your biggest phone customers are.
A phone order screen faster than the pad
- When a call comes in, the caller's number is matched against past orders, through your phone system or a VoIP line we set up, and their name, address and recent orders pop up on screen.
- For a regular, the last order can be repeated with one tap and adjusted. For a new caller, the address is found by postcode lookup so it is spelt correctly.
- Items are picked from the master menu with big buttons grouped the way you think about the menu, and modifiers such as spice level or no onions are one tap each.
- The total is calculated from current prices, including meal deals, and read back to the customer from the screen.
- The order goes to the kitchen ticket or screen in the same format as app orders, and to the dispatch list if it is for delivery, with the address printed clearly.
- Phone orders are recorded like any other, so they appear in your nightly figures and customer list.
We design the screen with your counter staff. If it is slower than the pad for a normal order, it will not get used, so we test it on real calls before calling it finished.
Answering the phone afterwards
Saturday's regular rings. Their name and usual order appear before you say hello. You ask if it is the usual, change the naan, read back a total that is right, and the order is in the kitchen before you put the phone down. The driver's ticket has a printed address and a map link.
- Regulars recognised and reordered in seconds
- Correct prices from the current menu
- Addresses spelt properly for the driver
- Phone trade counted in your nightly figures
Is the phone pad causing you problems?
- Phone orders are written by hand and added up in someone's head.
- Drivers ring the shop because they cannot read the address.
- The same customers dictate the same order every week.
- You do not know how much of your trade comes by phone.
- Slips occasionally go missing between the counter and the kitchen.