Restaurant Phone – Why It’s Not the Best Way to Take Orders

Although the pandemic has significantly accelerated the process of implementing online ordering systems in restaurants, most restaurants still take orders mainly by phone. Why is this not the best way to collect orders and how to improve it? We write about it in our new post!

For years, the phone was the only way to contact a restaurant and place an order for delivery. However, times are changing, and now taking orders only by phone is not very practical compared to the possibilities offered by the Internet and online ordering systems. If we only use the phone, we can lose many potential orders, for example for the following reasons:

• the customer may have problems calling the establishment if the line is constantly busy and be discouraged from placing an order,
• the customer prefers to pay online instead of handing over cash to the courier, so he or she prefers to order online,
• the customer does not want or cannot call the restaurant,
• the customer saw the menu on Facebook, but leaving the portal and entering the number seems too time-consuming.

These examples show that it’s best to offer customers multiple ways to place an order, because each of them has different preferences and options. If your business still relies on phone as its main channel for collecting orders, we have two tips to help you sell more and adapt to the demands of today’s customers.

1. Speed ​​up your phone order processing

First, try to streamline the process of taking phone orders and minimize the time the cashier spends taking individual orders. This will reduce the number of busy lines and make it easier for customers to reach you. The POScaller app , available in the POSbistro system, will help you with this. It allows you to create a customer database in POS, allowing you to save phone numbers, addresses, and order histories. This feature significantly simplifies serving regular customers, as most of the information is already stored in the system. Furthermore, the risk of error is reduced, as the employee doesn't have to enter the same data repeatedly. Furthermore, the salesperson can create a new order and send it to the kitchen with just a few clicks.

2. Sell your dishes online

Secondly, give customers the option of ordering and paying online . This will reduce the burden on the phone and satisfy those who prefer to pay online. You can use an ordering system integrated with the POS system, allowing orders to be automatically placed on the tablet, leaving the cashier to simply accept them. An example of such a system is Virtual Menu – a plugin that allows you to place an active menu on your restaurant's website, allowing you to place orders and pay online. In short, you'll be launching your own online store on your website!

3. Write about how to order your dishes

Great! We've discussed how to make ordering food from your restaurant convenient and quick. But that's not all! The final step is to inform customers about how to place an order from your restaurant on social media.

Posts with CTA buttons, or "calls to action," are best for this purpose . This type of post encourages customers to take an action, easily accessible by clicking a button attached to the post.

This way, you can show your current menu or a specific dish, and then place a “ Call ” button in the post if you want it to lead to a phone call to your restaurant, or an “ Order now ” button if you prefer it to redirect the customer to a website where they can conveniently place an order.