Get Restaurant Customers to Order Online, Not by Phone

Your ordering platform should reduce admin — not become another thing customers ignore.

You’ve invested in an ordering platform, uploaded your products, set up customer accounts, and sent out login details, but customers still call, text, and email orders at 7pm for tomorrow’s delivery.

For wholesale food suppliers, this is one of the most frustrating parts of moving to digital ordering. The platform exists, the process makes sense, but customers keep falling back on old habits.

The good news is that this usually isn’t a technology problem. It’s an adoption problem, and adoption can be improved.

Why Customers Still Order by Phone, Text, and Email

If your customers are still calling, texting, or emailing orders, the problem usually isn’t “technology resistance.” It’s friction.

Most restaurant and café operators already use digital tools every day. But when they’re in the middle of service, they choose the fastest option.

A two-minute phone call feels easy. It requires no login, no searching, and no learning curve. It also feels personal. Customers can ask questions, confirm stock, and speak to someone they trust.

But there’s another reason suppliers often overlook: the ordering portal may not be easy enough.

If customers have to click too many times, search for regular items, use a desktop-first layout, or wait for slow pages to load, they’ll go straight back to calling.

Before blaming customer habits, ask one simple question:

Is the portal actually easier than placing a phone order?

Ask a new customer to place an order on their phone with no guidance. Watch where they pause, get confused, or give up. That’s where your adoption problem is.

Tactics only work when the platform is simple. Fix the friction first, then move customers online.

Why Chefs Prefer Digital Ordering Over Calls, Texts and Emails

Five Tactics That Actually Work

1. Remove the Path of Least Resistance

Right now, calling you may feel easier than using the portal. Your goal is to reverse that.

This does not mean making it harder to call. It means making the portal genuinely more convenient. It should be mobile-friendly, fast, and personalised to each customer, showing their usual products and order history.

When a customer can log in, see what they ordered last week, and reorder with a few taps, that becomes faster than a phone call.

Make the first login easy too. Pre-populate their account with regular products. Send them a direct link to their ordering page, not a generic login screen. The fewer steps between “I need to order” and “done,” the faster the habit shifts.

2. Train Your Top Five Customers First

Do not try to convert every customer at once.

Start with your top five customers. Choose the ones who order often, communicate well, and already have a strong relationship with your team.

Spend 15 minutes walking them through the portal, ideally while they’re on the phone and looking at it on their screen.

Once those customers are ordering online and finding it easy, they become your best advocates. In hospitality, operators talk. Hearing “I just order online now, it’s actually easier” from another operator is more persuasive than hearing it from a supplier.

3. Use Cutoff Times as a Clear Incentive

Cutoff times are one of your most effective tools for shifting behaviour.

A simple message works well:

“Orders placed online before 2pm Monday are guaranteed for Tuesday’s run. Orders received by phone, text, or email after that cutoff may not make the Tuesday delivery.”

You are not refusing phone orders. You are making it clear that online orders come with a reliability advantage.

For customers running busy kitchens, that matters. The portal becomes the safest way to make sure their order arrives when they need it.

Why Digital Ordering Makes Chefs Happier and More Loyal

4. Turn Check-In Calls into Onboarding Moments

If a customer has not placed an online order yet, use your next check-in call to guide them through it.

Instead of saying, “Just checking if you need anything this week,” try:

“I can see you haven’t placed your order yet for Tuesday. Do you want me to walk you through placing it online now? It’ll only take a minute.”

Helping a customer place their first online order removes the biggest barrier. The second order is easier. By the third, it starts becoming habit.

This approach also feels supportive, not pushy.

5. Show Customers What the Portal Gives Them

A good ordering portal does more than make life easier for suppliers. It gives customers useful information too.

Customers can view their order history, see what they buy most often, track spend, and quickly repeat previous orders. For a café or restaurant owner trying to manage food costs, that is genuinely useful.

Point this out clearly:

“You can see everything you’ve ordered from us, which makes it easier to track costs, repeat regular orders, and spot changes over time.”

When customers see value for themselves, they are more likely to keep using the portal.

How to Transition Restaurant Customers to Digital Ordering

What Good Platform Adoption Looks Like

A realistic benchmark for a focused digital rollout is 70 to 80% of orders coming through the portal within 60 days.

The remaining 20 to 30% will usually include complex orders, last-minute requests, and customers who need more time to change habits.

The goal is not to eliminate every phone call. The goal is to reduce manual order handling to a manageable level.

At 80% online adoption, your operations change meaningfully. Pick lists become more reliable. Cutoff times are easier to enforce. Your team spends less time processing orders and more time managing exceptions.

That is the outcome worth working toward.

Open Pantry’s customer ordering portal is built to be simple enough that restaurant and café operators actually use it on their phone, quickly, without needing a tutorial.

If your customers are still defaulting to phone, text, and email, it may be time to give them a simpler way to order.

If adoption has been a struggle with your current setup, we’d love to show you what a smooth rollout looks like.

Book a free demo today and see how easy online ordering can be with Open Pantry!