Every Tuesday, the same forty orders
A good share of your trade is regular. The same cafes, pubs, care homes and site canteens take roughly the same things every week. Each Tuesday, someone in the office goes through a folder of standing orders and keys them in. Some customers ring to add or remove things. One is closed for refurbishment and nobody wrote it down, so the van turns up to a locked door.
When the person who runs the standing orders is on holiday, their stand-in misses two customers entirely. Both ring on Wednesday morning, not happy.
Why standing orders are fragile
Most wholesale systems can create repeat orders, but the setup around them is manual. Changes arrive by phone and are noted on paper. Holidays and closures are not recorded. Customers do not see what is about to be sent, so they correct it after delivery rather than before. And prices on standing orders can quietly go stale.
- The master list is a folder, a spreadsheet or a person.
- Temporary changes (this week only) get confused with permanent ones.
- Customer holidays and closures are not held anywhere the system can see.
- Customers are not reminded before the order is picked.
- Standing order prices are not checked against current agreements.
The cost of getting regulars wrong
Your regular accounts are the ones that keep vans full and the week predictable. Errors on their orders are noticed immediately, and repeated errors are how a loyal customer drifts to the cash and carry or another distributor. Failed deliveries to closed premises waste a drop. And the office loses a morning a week to a job a system could do.
Price drift is the slow one. A standing order set up two years ago can still carry the price it was keyed at, so either the customer is getting an old deal or, after a price change, the invoice jumps and they ring to ask why. Neither is a conversation you want with a customer who orders every week without fuss.
How we automate standing orders
- Each standing order is held as a schedule against the customer: lines, quantities, delivery day, and start and end dates.
- Before the order is due, the customer gets a message (email, text or WhatsApp, as they prefer) showing what will be sent, with a link to amend quantities, add lines or skip the week.
- Changes are marked as this week only or permanent, so one-off requests do not stick.
- Holidays and closures are recorded against the account, and the order is held automatically on those dates.
- At the time you set, confirmed orders are created in your order system through its API or import, with current prices applied.
- Customers who have not replied get their usual order, unless you choose to hold unconfirmed ones.
| Situation | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly keying | Office types forty orders | Orders created on schedule |
| Customer changes | Phone call, paper note | Customer amends via link |
| Closed for a week | Van turns up anyway | Order held automatically |
| Staff holiday | Orders missed | Nothing depends on one person |
Tuesdays afterwards
The office checks a short list of customers who asked for something unusual, and that is it. Customers see what is coming and fix it themselves, which they tend to prefer. Drivers stop visiting closed premises. And if you want to suggest a new line to regulars, the reminder message is a natural place to do it.
Sound like your standing orders?
- Standing orders are keyed by hand each week.
- Customers ring after delivery to say the order was wrong.
- Deliveries arrive at closed premises.
- Only one person really knows the standing order list.
- Temporary changes sometimes become permanent by mistake.