Guides·The big call
Catering calls: the most expensive calls you miss
A catering call might be the single biggest order your restaurant takes all month. It arrives by phone, and it almost always arrives while your team is buried in a rush. Four cheap fixes can save these calls, and you can set all four up this week.
The biggest order arrives at the worst time
Picture Tuesday, 12:15. An office manager calls to feed forty people at a lunch meeting on Friday. She wants trays of chicken and rice, a falafel platter, salads, and drinks. Priced out, one order like that can be worth more than a whole evening of regular phone orders.
Now look at when it arrived: the middle of your lunch rush. The phone is ringing while three orders sit in the window and the register has a line. Nobody can grab it. The biggest order of your week just rolled to voicemail, and a restaurant voicemail box is where big orders go to die.
The caller has a list, and you are on it
Someone feeding forty people on a deadline does not leave one voicemail and wait patiently. They have a list of three or four restaurants, and they work down it until a real person says yes. That is not a statistic. It is what you would do with a boss waiting on an answer.
Which means the first restaurant that answers, sounds organized, and calls back fast usually wins the booking. The places that let the phone ring split nothing. Every fix below is about being that first restaurant.
Fix one: a voicemail greeting that makes a promise
A hungry dinner caller will not leave a message. Someone planning an event will, but only if you tell them exactly what to leave and when you will call back. So record a greeting that speaks to them directly.
Try something like: “Ordering for a group or an event? Leave the date, the headcount, and your number, and we will call you back within the hour.” One sentence turns your voicemail from a dead end into a net. Just make sure the callback promise is one you can keep.
Fix two: a one-page catering menu by the phone
Catering calls also die on a live answer, when whoever picks up says, “Uh, the manager handles that, can you try tomorrow?” The caller hears “we are not set up for this” and dials the next place on the list.
The fix is one laminated page taped next to the phone. List your trays, how many people each one feeds, and what each costs. A chicken tray that feeds ten to twelve. Brisket by the pound. A falafel and hummus platter. Rice, salads, drinks. Now your newest hire can answer the two things every catering caller asks first: can you feed my group, and roughly what it will cost.
Fix three: capture three answers in thirty seconds
Whoever answers does not need to build a quote on the spot. They need thirty seconds and three answers.
Everything else is a bonus: delivery or pickup, the occasion, anything the guests cannot eat. With those three answers, you can call back with a real quote. Without them, there is nothing to call back on. Print the three questions on the same laminated page.
- The date of the event.
- The headcount, even a rough one.
- A name and a number to call back.
Fix four: call back within the hour
The person planning the event wants this crossed off their list today. Whichever restaurant calls back first with a clear answer usually gets the booking. Call back tomorrow and you are often quoting an event that booked yesterday. That is not an industry study. It is how anyone with a deadline behaves.
So make it a house rule: catering messages get a callback within the hour, even during service. The callback can be short: “Got your message. Yes, we can feed forty on Friday. I will confirm the full price tonight.” A fast yes from a real person buys you time that a slow, perfect quote never gets.
Where the phone itself fits
Every fix above still depends on one thing: the call getting picked up, or at least reaching your voicemail instead of ringing into nothing. On a slammed Friday, picking up is exactly what fails. That is the one honest job for any answering help you hire, human service or AI: make sure the call gets answered, so the conversation can happen.
OrderVoice, our AI phone operator, plays it straight here. It answers every call instantly, even during the rush, and when a caller has a big group or catering order, it brings one of your people onto the line, because a forty-person order deserves a human conversation. It will not build your quote or chase the lead for you. The greeting, the one-page menu, the three questions, and the one-hour callback are still yours. They cost nothing, and you can have all four ready before the next big call comes in.
Hear it answer a real call.
Fifteen minutes, your menu, and the exact price. No commitment.