An office manager needs breakfast pastries for twenty people on Thursday at half past eight. She needs it delivered, she needs an invoice, and she needs somebody to confirm it so she can stop thinking about it.
She messages a bakery on Tuesday evening. Nobody reads it until Wednesday afternoon, by which time she has ordered from a chain.
Step 1: say that you do it
A page for business orders, with what you supply, minimums and lead times. Most small bakeries would take these orders and never mention the possibility.
Step 2: publish the lead time
By order size. Twenty pastries and two hundred are different, and an office manager planning a meeting needs to know how far ahead to order.
Step 3: offer invoicing
Businesses cannot put a hundred pounds on a personal card and claim it back easily. An invoice with terms is frequently the deciding factor.
Step 4: publish delivery arrangements
Which areas, what times, what it costs and whether an early morning delivery is possible. Meetings start at nine and a delivery at ten is worthless.
Step 5: confirm the order clearly
A written confirmation with the date, time, items and total. Office managers are accountable for it and need something to forward.
Step 6: publish the dietary options
Vegan, gluten free and what you can and cannot guarantee. Every office has someone with a requirement and the order goes to whoever can accommodate it, so say plainly what you can produce and what your kitchen cannot guarantee.
Step 7: price per head as well as per item
Businesses budget per person and per item pricing makes them do arithmetic they would rather not.
Step 8: offer a standing order
Weekly or monthly, for a recurring meeting. One conversation produces a year of orders and it is the single most valuable thing to ask about.
Step 9: make it easy to repeat
Reordering the same as last time, in one message, without re-specifying everything. Office managers order the same thing repeatedly.
Step 10: publish the cancellation position
Meetings move and offices close. A stated notice period protects production and is entirely reasonable.
Step 10b: ask who else is in the building
An office manager who likes the order tells the other companies on her floor, and shared buildings are where corporate catering spreads fastest. Asking whether neighbouring offices might want the same delivery costs one question and frequently turns a single account into three on the same round.
Step 11: think about presentation
Platters, labelling, serviettes and whether anything needs setting up. Office managers are judged on how it looks and will pay for it to look right.
Step 12: capture at the hours offices plan
Orders are placed in the evening and early morning around other work, which is the timing in corporate lunch orders that arrive after the office closes and the capture pattern in an AI receptionist for opticians.
Getting started
Publish minimums, lead times, delivery windows, dietary options and your invoicing terms, then capture business orders at any hour. SpideyChat for food businesses answers from your published pages, while trade supply is covered in wholesale bread and pastry enquiries from local cafes and celebration work in custom cake orders that need every detail. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about capture on the features page.