The catering customer who orders every month

A cafe with six regular catering customers has a predictable revenue line most venues would envy. Most of them treat each order as a fresh transaction, which wastes the relationship and annoys the customer. The same office rings every month, and every month somebody asks them the same six questions. None of the answers has changed since March.

The second order should take a minute

An office ordering the same platters monthly should not have to re-explain the delivery time, the dietaries or who meets the driver. In Diract CRM the last order's lines start the new one, so the repeat takes a minute rather than a phone call. The customer notices the difference immediately. A venue that remembers the coeliac platter and the loading dock reads as professional, and professional is what keeps a corporate account.

What to record on the first order

• The contact who orders, and whoever actually pays.
• The delivery address and time, including the loading dock or the reception desk.
• The dietary requirements, by number rather than by name.
• The platters they chose, and anything they asked to change.
• Who meets the driver, with a mobile number.

Every one of those gets asked again on the second order unless somebody wrote it down the first time. None of them takes longer to record than the question takes to ask. Diract CRM keeps them on the customer rather than on the order, so the ninth order inherits them as easily as the second.

Dietaries are a head count, not a story

Three vegetarian and one coeliac gives a kitchen a definite number. Some vegetarians does not. Recording the numbers on the customer, with a note that they change, makes each order faster and safer. The kitchen can then prepare from the record instead of from a recollection of last month's phone call. A change cut-off protects the same food. An office reducing its head count on the morning leaves the venue holding food it has already made and already bought. Our guide to catering orders covers charging the agreed number.

The person who orders is not the person who pays

An office manager orders, an accounts department pays, and an invoice sent to the first one waits a month. Two contacts on one customer, each with a role, fixes that permanently. Our guide to contact records covers keeping the two apart. The invoice should also go to the business rather than to an individual who claims it back afterwards. A purchase order number, where the customer uses one, gets the invoice paid faster and queried less.

A standing order is a recurring job

A customer ordering the same thing every second Friday does not need a phone call each time. Diract CRM repeats the order so it appears in the kitchen's list ahead of time, with the customer and the lines attached. Payment terms belong on the customer beside it. A corporate caterer expects an invoice, and a venue used to card payments discovers that at the worst possible moment.

One venue contact, so it is not a lottery

A catering customer passed between three staff gets a different answer each time and eventually stops calling. A named person on the customer record, with a deputy behind them, keeps the relationship consistent. The deputy matters as much as the name. A single owner who takes annual leave produces the same lottery the arrangement was meant to prevent.

Platters come back, or they do not

A venue lending platters to an office needs to know which ones are out and who holds them. A note on the order, cleared when they return, prevents the slow disappearance of equipment nobody was tracking. Six platters a year is a real cost, and none of it appears in any report. The note takes four seconds, and the replacement takes a purchase order.

Notice when the frequency changes

A customer ordering monthly for a year, and nothing for two months, has changed supplier or changed circumstances. A short call finds out which, and it protects the revenue far more cheaply than replacing it. Feedback on the afternoon of a delivery does similar work earlier. A short message that afternoon catches a problem while it is still fixable. It also produces the sentence a venue can quote to the next office that asks.

Keeping the customer in Diract CRM

Diract CRM holds the orderer and the payer as separate linked contacts, so the invoice reaches accounts rather than the office manager. A past order's lines start the next one, which turns a monthly repeat into a minute's work. The dietaries, the delivery window and the terms sit on the customer. A standing order repeats on its own schedule, and the kitchen sees it before anybody rings.

What to change first

• The first order records the contact, address, time and dietaries
• Dietary requirements record as numbers rather than descriptions
• The orderer and the payer sit as separate linked contacts
• A standing order becomes a repeating job
• Payment terms record on the customer
• A change cut off protects the food already prepared
• A drop in frequency prompts a phone call