Continue to Site

Handling Phone Orders

D

DDH

New member
We get a ton of orders from a local hospital. Typically, they are for delivery and they consist of orders for multiple people, often as many as 7 or 8. Where the problem arises is when they want the tickets split for each order and even worse, each one paid for with a different credit card. For a large order, you could be on the phone with one customer for 15 minutes. We have a policy on phone orders of not splitting tickets more then once, which means we’ll take two credit cards maximum. We are a very high volume store, with phones constantly ringing during peak hours. My cashiers (3 at peak hours) can’t be “married” to one order for such a long time. Additional cashiers for a few hours would mean additional phones, additional POS stations and of course additional payroll.

Is my policy unfair? How do other high volume stores handle such orders? Any ideas or solutions is appreciated.

Dave
 
Last edited:
My policy has always been if they want to pay each order seperately, each order is taken one at a time and paid for. Then the next order is taken. That way it shows up in the POS as multiple orders all paid for, and all paying the delivery fee even tho it will all be delivered at once.

If they want to call in 7 orders at once, that is fine with me. But they will be paying the delivery fee for each one.
 
Last edited:
We do these orders quite a bit also. Our policy is real simple. What ever the customer wants, they get. We do all kinds of multiple payment types, deliveries to different address under the same order. Our record to date happened a few years ago. It was 35 separate orders for 1 pizza each. Each order was paid with a different credit card. It took our guy 45 minutes to take the orders. They wanted them delivered to the same address at the same time and each one paid the delivery charge. We collected $70 in delivery charge fees and the driver collected $50 in mileage for himself. He claims he didn’t get any tips, but I’m not sure if I buy that one. We take all the time we need to help customers. A 15 or 20 minute order happens at least once or twice a day.
 
Last edited:
d9phoenix said:
My policy has always been if they want to pay each order seperately, each order is taken one at a time and paid for. Then the next order is taken. That way it shows up in the POS as multiple orders all paid for, and all paying the delivery fee even tho it will all be delivered at once.

If they want to call in 7 orders at once, that is fine with me. But they will be paying the delivery fee for each one.
Click to expand...
We will take the delivery fee off for these orders but this customer wanted to pay it. It stands as one of our strangest orders to date.
 
Last edited:
Is your policy unfair? It’s your business and within the law, you define what’s “fair”. Is it sending your customers to your competition where they are able to split the ticket amongst the whole staff working that station? Probably. We have three very large hospitals in our area each buying tens of thousands of dollars annually from us. I bend over backward kissing their a$$ to keep them happy as they produce so much of our dayshift sales. A couple weeks ago with little to no notice we had more than a dozen orders to one hospital totaling 180 pizzas to be delivered in a two hour period. While I called in managers that closed the night before and an owner of another store in our franchise to help us, our competition told them simply that they could not accommodate them without more notice. It’s all about how you want to treat your customers. If it is a common problem, maybe you really should consider adding POS stations and staff.
 
Last edited:
Anyone had luck moving some of this time-intensive order activity online?

A number of online ordering providers support Group Orders – which would allow corporate or hospital customers to submit this kind of order through your website. Your customers may actually prefer it to the phone: it’s convenient because all the organizer has to do is start the order, and the system sends a link to each “invitee,” so each can enter his or her order separately. It may not solve your split payment issue, but if the company’s picking up the tab, Group Orders are great because they allow the organizer to pay for all the orders in a single online payment.

If these are typically delivery orders, another option (not quite as slick) could be to suggest that the organizer have each person place a separate order online for delivery at a specific time. That would let them enter their payment information individually. They could then give you a call or include a note in one of the orders to ask you to deliver the orders in one trip.

Have you ever had the job of trying to coordinate lunch orders for a bunch of people? I know it’s a pain on your side… It’s probably even worse for the organizer at the hospital. I’d figure out who organizes group orders at the hospital, and give them a call. If you can help them find an easier way to get it done, your shop will be the go-to for these orders.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, We had the hospital multiple seperate order thing happening here too,
we explained that if each order was to be paid for separately, that each order would also have the delivery charge on it, and there is no way the POS system would allow us to remove the delivery fee for each order .
So it fixed that issue easily enough.

The one that was/is driving me nuts is the 2-3 extra calls to add items onto an existing delivery order with a credit card being used for payment over the phone.
We found a small stumbling block in our POS that it does not tack on extras charges to a credit card that already has a pre-auth on it. We either need to start a new order and charge them another delivery charge, or remove the previous payment each time, and start from scratch.
This in turn shows the customer that they got double or triple charged until their card issuer releases the pre-auth amount several days later. (allegedly there as a patch being issued for this soon)
 
Last edited:
We split orders only once. If they want to split it further, they need to be separated.
 
Last edited:
GotRocks: Revention has an option only as long as the amount of the order went up, to just add the increased amount to the original card. I actually owned the store for almost 6 months before i noticed it (and i didn’t even notice it, a driver pointed it out to me lol).

It is actually a real pain to use this feature, because to edit the order you have to make sure the total always goes up. So we have to add the new item or corrected item, then void the old item. Otherwise revention will refuse to make the total smaller then what is already pre-Auth’d even tho we have not fininalized the new order yet.
 
Last edited:
DDH said:
How do other high volume stores handle such orders?
Click to expand...
View it as 8 orders taking less than 2 minutes each, delete the delivery fees since they’re all going to one location anyways, and thank them for their business. Afterwards; think, “I really need to invest in additional PoS terminals, phone lines and employees to continue growing my business,” and then go out and get them. For additional effect, picture yourself spreading the new, larger nightly deposit out on the floor and rolling around in it like Scrooge McDuck.
 
Last edited:
d9phoenix said:
GotRocks: Revention has an option only as long as the amount of the order went up, to just add the increased amount to the original card. I actually owned the store for almost 6 months before i noticed it (and i didn’t even notice it, a driver pointed it out to me lol).

It is actually a real pain to use this feature, because to edit the order you have to make sure the total always goes up. So we have to add the new item or corrected item, then void the old item. Otherwise revention will refuse to make the total smaller then what is already pre-Auth’d even tho we have not fininalized the new order yet.
Click to expand...
There is an update coming out from my software provider for this exact reason. I just do not know when it’ll be put out for us.
It has not been a problem here until we started offering delivery and keying in cards without them being present.
 
Last edited:
As time goes on, i wish i could just have the drivers swipe all cards at the door instead of having to take the CC over the phone. Lower costs and less hassle dealing with hearing the card #s wrong. But on the other hand is what to do when the card gets declined at the door…
 
Last edited:
d9phoenix said:
As time goes on, i wish i could just have the drivers swipe all cards at the door instead of having to take the CC over the phone. Lower costs and less hassle dealing with hearing the card #s wrong. But on the other hand is what to do when the card gets declined at the door…
Click to expand...
I have been doing the swipe at the door for nearly 10 years and have had very few that have been declined and not had an alternate method of payment. The cost of the mobile machines is more than offset by the difference in fees between swiped and keyed transactions.
 
Last edited:
Daddio said:
I have been doing the swipe at the door for nearly 10 years and have had very few that have been declined and not had an alternate method of payment. The cost of the mobile machines is more than offset by the difference in fees between swiped and keyed transactions.
Click to expand...
Are you supplying the smart phones to do this with, or do your drivers get upset about the data usage on their own phones?
I’d like to do this, but solid data coverage can be sketchy in my area.
 
Last edited:
GotRocks said:
Are you supplying the smart phones to do this with, or do your drivers get upset about the data usage on their own phones?
I’d like to do this, but solid data coverage can be sketchy in my area.
Click to expand...
I use Ingenico long range wireless supplied by my Merchant Service Provider. They are also compatible with my gift cards and loyalty program.I use Ingenico long range wireless supplied by my Merchant Service Provider. They are also compatible with my gift cards and loyalty program.
 
Last edited:
d9phoenix said:
GotRocks: Revention has an option only as long as the amount of the order went up, to just add the increased amount to the original card. I actually owned the store for almost 6 months before i noticed it (and i didn’t even notice it, a driver pointed it out to me lol).

It is actually a real pain to use this feature, because to edit the order you have to make sure the total always goes up. So we have to add the new item or corrected item, then void the old item. Otherwise revention will refuse to make the total smaller then what is already pre-Auth’d even tho we have not fininalized the new order yet.
Click to expand...
Actually that is not true in the current version of Revention. You can add to or remove from an order already paid for with a credit card and it will adjust the amount to batch.

As far as split tickets go, doing them with Revention is no harder that taking separate orders. I couldn’t sleep well at night knowing we charged a delivery fee for each order just because they wanted to pay separately.
 
Last edited:
Which version of Revention are you using ? We got upgraded to a new version last month that broke everything. And for the second time i had them revert them back to the version we have been using for several years now.
 
Last edited:
d9phoenix said:
Which version of Revention are you using ? We got upgraded to a new version last month that broke everything. And for the second time i had them revert them back to the version we have been using for several years now.
Click to expand...
10.43.41203 - probably the same one you are talking about. We didn’t have any issues - what sort of problem did you have?
 
Last edited:
HMM, we just got upgraded, but are on an earlier? version than you, 10.43.40801

So are you saying that I can add to an order and then delete the offending item, and as long as the total does not go down, revention will adjust the credit card?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top