Do you take order over Call or Whats App? Now think about better experience for your clients

With the advancement in technology, every industry is changing. Looking forward to the Grocery, Food and Restaurant segment, adapting to this change has become important noticing the chaos in traditional process i.e. getting involved into maximum of manual work right from taking order in person via call or Whats App to delivering the same. For some of the stuffs like cooking food, differentiating and packing groceries, manual work can’t be ignored but for the rest of them, everything can go automated i.e. Taking order via calls or Whats App can be automated as it involves more of manual work and at times has found hectic and full of fiasco too. There have been noticeable issues with taking manual orders as listed below:

Commonly observed issues of taking order via Call or Whats app

• Rush down to process the order and take next call: It has been observed many times that while taking orders via calls; the person is always in a hurry to take order and to precede it further or to take up the next call. With this, he is more likely to make mistakes and customers feel ignored as the staff hung up the call. This damages the overall brand’s/ store’s image.

• Miscommunication: Taking order via calls can increase the tendency of misunderstanding i.e. few of the food items in the order can go wrong, details in delivery address or contact details can be miscommunicated. The representative could struggle to understand the customer’s accent or a vice- versa thing could happen, all can lead to miscommunication.

• Answer dozens of questions: Generally while placing order, there might be n-number of questions depending on the delicacies and customization requirement in the same. At times, the representative doesn’t know the answers or he skips to answer them as it seems endless to him. The same is observed while Whats app chat too that representative avoids to answer all the questions as he might get busy with other order. This is gives wrong impression to customer and he/she may avoid ordering again.

To avoid the above chaos, few measures can be taken be it in the form of representative practices or to totally avoid manual involvement and switch to automation i.e. take orders via online media be it website or an app. Let’s see in- depth, how can online media be fruitful to the restaurant and grocery store owners.

How the issues can be overcome by taking online order

• Offering various payment options: Ordering online can be advantageous as a customer can get multiple payment options like COD, Net banking, Credit/Debit card payments and above all he/she can avail the benefits of third party payment gateways like Pay U, CC Avenue and so on. For grocery owners, no more head ache to keep change or ask for change.

• Better customer service and user experience: Ordering online can give them a unique experience unlike over calls. They can mention any specific requirement with the order and that too taking whatever time they want.

• Offer discount and coupons: You can give multiple benefits to let your customer order more by offering them discounts and food coupons as a pop up when the customer visit your site or any other site. This may even force them to download your app and order via it.

• Display product catalogues easily: Your representative no more have to dictate the entire menu or the suggestion or the combo to the customer, neither do they have to ask for anything. All they have to do is browse your entire menu and order online. With website or app ordering facility, you can encourage people to try your new delicacies–and order more of them. Same goes with the grocery store too. They can browse the entire groceries irrespective of categories.

• Take order 24×7: You don’t have to get your customers restricted to your visiting hours or any representative to answer their calls. Neither they have to wait in a line or wait till the shop assistant helps with the purchases. Give them the access to shop in minutes even if you are busy. Online shops give us the opportunity to take orders 24 x 7.

• Easy to manage inventory and customer information: You can monitor your food ordering services and keep track of your employees better also you can tally your inventory in a most systematic way and avoid any sort of shortages. You can get your customers details in whatever formats you want rather than keeping manual register entry which can be hectic to maintain at times.

Online ordering has been implemented by various brands and have noticed tremendous upscale in the order ratio. According to Business Insider Intelligence, by 2020, for all quick-service restaurants, orders placed via smartphone will sum up to above 10% of all sales.

For pizza industry, maximum brands such as Dominoes and Papa John’s sales are through online media. Apart from this, Café brand like Starbucks also noticed an increase in their sales and that too via online channel.

Viewing the above, we can see that we cannot stick to the traditional format, we have to come up with the advancement, and we have to come up with the new ways to reach out our customers and give them convenience and ease while shopping. Therefore, taking orders over call or Whats app can be one of the methods but you cannot stick to it, the future would be taking every aspect of your business online be it establishing a connection with your customer or be it taking orders online.