Solution for Wrong Orders Being Handed Out

December

December

New member
In the past 3 days just over $200 worth of wrong orders (3orders,$90,$70,$50) have been given out bc the customer gives the wrong name/has no idea what they’re picking up. My employees dont help the situation either, just giving out the order no questions asked.

At least 40 to 50 times a day the customer picking up the food has no idea who’s name it is under or what was ordered. It baffles me how no customer ever learns from the choas they created by not knowing anything about the order they are picking up. Most of the time they don’t even know the phone number of who called in the order because no one has to memorize phone numbers anymore. All they do is just hit the name of the person on their cell phone.

What is everyone else doing to combat this problem?

I’ve asked my employees to ask for the name of the person picking up the order. That way when they come in and say “I am picking up the order for either Tina, Mark, or Kim”, I can say what is your name and then find the order easier.
It seems my employees never do this, instead, they just leave the name to whatever it was auto populated as from the caller ID.

I really don’t even know if my idea to ask for the name of the person picking up the order is even the most efficient way to prevent this problem.

I know a lot of places give out the order number, but I really doubt the customer would relay this information to the person picking it up. The more I think about this problem the more I think it is just a total lack of respect from everyone towards our industry.

What do I do?
 
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We ask for name and phone number every time for verification. When the customer comes in to pick up we ask for both again. If they don’t know we have them contact whoever placed the order.

It’s annoying and they think we’re stupid for doing it but it mostly works out.
 
I used to say " People in Reno don’t know their name" The cell phone is the cause of all this. People are all over the map while using it. Johnny ordered, Bill is going to pick up but gets busy, so has his son get it. Son is named Joe. There is a Joe order waiting to go so you give it to him. My wife was the only person who worked the phone/register/checked every order before it went out. Still, this happened occasionally. We sold our shop, and I am now training the new owners. I am SO HAPPY to be out of the pandemic/post pandemic USA work world!!
 
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I don’t have a solution for you, but we have some of the same issue but ours is more of a same name order being handed out. Order for Mike, 3 Mike’s in the system and they just pick the first one, give Mike his salad and then he calls back and says my wife ordered $70 worth of food and all I got was a salad? So then we have to remake the salad and get this guy his food, all because no one puts a last name/initial or the customer even knows what their getting. It’s very frustrating. Luckily online orders have helped this to a degree. Sometimes they actually come in and say order #337 and it’s simple.
 
Same here… everyday multiple times there are 2 orders waiting for pick up with the same name
It can get hairy.
With more and more people eating out for every meal and fewer and fewer people wanting to work in our industry, I definitely do not want to be having to remake orders.

It really makes me mad that my employees never seem to give a rats ass about giving out the wrong order, they would if the money came out of their pocket
 
You can design a system that the money does somewhat come out of their pocket. Put money into a no errors pot, they can split when there are no errors that night
 
We do read all order to customer who ever puck them up.
Because sometimes its John order but 4 people named john placed an order nit sure who will come first.
So staff who hand out pizzas will read the order items to customers
 
Ive had the same problem in yrs past. My solution was to always ask for 1st & last name, as we can have 20 Smiths in the local area, so now its always 1st and last name. And if the person picking up cant give me proper information i ask them to call the person who ever placed the order. My POS system has a dbl copy paper printing into the kitchen and the 1st white copy goes on the pizzas and the carbon yellow copy attaches to everything else meaning salad, breadsticks etc… anyone working the front knows to look for both white and yellow matching orders. Ive been the only one mainly working the front end during the day and most of the evening, after i leave its my head cashier all in all ive eliminated wrong handouts for 3 yrs now with the new pos system and rules. BUT i will say for every $1000 your bound to have 1 mistake
 
I don’t think there is a solution here but there are ways to minimize. Our POS helps since we added a customer display touchpad that displays the details of each order where customers can let us know if something is off. You can train employees to repeat each pickup order before it goes out…i usually do a summary like ok 2 pies and 2 salads, etc. At the end of the day you are asking minimum wage employees to pay attention to detail (and give a rats ass) when these days you are happy that they show up at all. There are multiple times each dinner rush that I have to yell out hey guys there are 2 orders under the name Mike, etc. so be careful! I think including a receipt with every order might help too!
 
Im thinking there really isn’t a solution just try to minimize it.

We already read the order back when they are picking it up. Problem is customer have no idea about the items on the order they’re picking up…they just know someone was supposed to have placed an order and they were told to pick it up.

If I were the cashier, I would ask the customer to call and find out for sure. It would be such a nuisance though because this situation happens ALL THE TIME.

I know deep down there is no solution to the issue.

I guess Im just venting.

But I really am going to start cracking the whip on taking a proper name for every order. All my employees have a habit of leaving the name as whatever the caller ID auto populates it as.
WIRELESS CALLER, -SULLIVAN,DAPHNE,BOY,GIRL are examples of what will be unacceptable
 
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My 80 yr old mom does this quite a bit, me and my head cashier constantly go in the POS and change to correct name. Plus its a bit irritating having my POS do auto correct and completely distroys the name, but we usually catch it and change it back. Ive really struggled with her to put in 1st & last names as i said i we can have like 20 smiths ordering and like 15 Johns. So for me its a must for 1st and last names on all tickets. Ive truly minimized mistakes by maybe 1 for every 1000 dollars or so and thats mainly putting in a wrong item
 
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We used to have the same problem. In our pos system each order has a ticket number, So when the customer calls we tell them that you are ticket number 15 for example so when they come in, we ask for the ticket number. We also take phone number/name. It’s been working out perfect for us!
 
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