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The essential guide to holiday catering: tips for handling large orders
Throughout the holidays, your restaurant is ideally fielding a surge of requests for large orders from new and returning customers to serve a variety of gatherings—from corporate holiday parties and end-of-year celebrations to family reunions. But as any restaurant operator knows, managing the holiday rush can quickly become overwhelming.
This situation may feel familiar: your team is stretched thin, juggling multiple phone calls and emails asking for catering menus, pricing, and delivery options. While you want to accommodate every request and unlock sales, you might find that your current delivery operation isn’t quite up to the task. Perhaps you employ a small number of drivers, but only a few of them use vehicles that can transport larger orders.
Successfully handling catering requests during the holidays isn’t just about meeting demand—it’s also about exceeding customer expectations and seizing an opportunity to boost revenue during the busiest time of year. Having the right strategy, tools, and processes in place can make all the difference.
This checklist outlines some key steps to help you efficiently manage and fulfill large holiday orders. From evaluating your ordering channels and perfecting packaging strategies to ensuring seamless delivery logistics, explore ideas that can help you deliver a smooth experience from your kitchen to your customers’ doorsteps.
71%
The increase in same-store catering transactions in Q4 2023 compared with Q4 2022¹
Evaluate historical customer trends
To kick off your holiday catering prep, start by reviewing how customers currently place large orders with you. Specifically, make sure you can answer the following questions:
- How do customers place catering orders with your restaurant: through phone calls, emails, or a dedicated website or mobile app?
- Do you experience a notable spike in demand for large orders during the holiday season compared with other times of the year?
- For which meals are customers generally placing catering orders: breakfast, lunch, or dinner?
- What are the most popular menu items for large orders?
✓ Tip: Communicate proactively with customers
Use your social media channels and website to inform customers about your catering services and order deadlines. Offer clear options for specifying dropoff instructions, either over the phone or through online forms. This ensures that delivery people receive precise directions, reducing issues and improving customer satisfaction.
Customize outreach to customers
If you find that most of your catering orders come through your owned sales channels, you can get creative with personalized outreach. Using customer data from previous orders, try experimenting with one of these ideas:
- A text blast wishing customers a happy holiday season with a link to place a catering order
- An email to people who have never placed a catering order with you that showcases some of your most popular catering items
- A personalized email to customers who placed a catering order with you last year asking if they’d like to place the same order again this year
- A physical holiday card sent through the mail featuring a QR code that directs customers to your online ordering channels
✓ Tip: Reward early orders
Offering early-bird specials and discounted bundles based on popular dishes can boost customer satisfaction and encourage advance orders. This will help you better manage inventory and resources during the rush.
Prepare your delivery operations
One of the greatest challenges with large order fulfillment is ensuring that the food arrives on time and in excellent condition. To prepare for the holiday season, assess whether your current delivery setup is ready. Here are a few questions to consider when planning delivery operations:
- How are delivery orders from my owned sales channels currently fulfilled?
- Do I employ drivers? If so, how many are there, and how far can they deliver?
- Do I have access to delivery people with 4-wheel vehicles that can support larger orders?
- What happens if order volume exceeds driver capacity?
- Can I offer overtime pay or find additional drivers on short notice?
✓ Tip: Embrace the power of technology
By using a delivery technology solution like Uber Direct, your restaurant can receive large catering orders through your owned sales channels and tap into Uber’s expansive delivery network for support. It’s the same network that powers deliveries from the Uber Eats marketplace, just harnessed for orders placed directly with your business. Plus, your customers will get Uber’s real-time tracking and proof of delivery verification for peace of mind.
Here’s how it works:
- Onboard through your existing tech stack or an API integration
- Accept orders through your website, app, social media channels, or phone
- Specify large orders and connect with Uber delivery people in size-appropriate vehicles
- Enjoy 0% commission pricing—just pay a flat fee per delivery that can be passed on to your customer
Optimize in-store fulfillment
An organized in-store fulfillment process is an essential part of a smooth and successful delivery. To ensure that catering orders make it to customers on time and in the best possible condition, keep the following tips in mind.
Packaging
- Separate hot and cold food items into different bags
- Use durable, heat-resistant containers that aren’t prone to ripping or leaking
- Secure liquids like beverages or soups with tape
- Label containers to help customers identify food items and allergen information
- Include serving and reheating instructions, if applicable
- Consolidate the order into large boxes or insulated bags to help with transport
Staging
- Clearly mark the pickup location for delivery people
- Provide delivery people with a convenient place to park or idle to pack large orders
- Display order names clearly, especially if delivery people are picking up from a shared table
- Designate staff members to help delivery people pack their vehicles, if applicable
- Have carts handy for particularly large orders
✓ Tip: Implement a double-check system
Introduce a mandatory 2-step process where one employee packs the order and another reviews it against the receipt before it’s handed off. This ensures accuracy and efficiency in order fulfillment. Most importantly, it can prevent costly order errors.
$160
The average ticket size for catering orders¹
Prioritize communication
Catering orders are often higher-value, making transparent communication vital. At a minimum, you’ll want to make sure that your customers know when to expect their order, especially if someone has to meet the delivery person and help unpack multiple boxes or bags. You’ll also want to give delivery people an easy way to ensure that they’re handing the order to the right person.
With a delivery solution like Uber Direct, your business can enable this added assurance for both parties through the following 2 features:
Real-time tracking: This allows you and your customers to track the status of an order when it's out for delivery. Real-time tracking steps include:
- Customer places an order with you
- Customer receives a text with a tracking link and ETA when the order is out for delivery
- Customer receives 3 texts after that for each delivery milestone (driver on the way, driver arriving, and order delivered)
Proof of delivery: Verifies through an electronic record that a delivery order has been delivered to its intended recipient. Proof of delivery methods include:
- Photos, to help customers locate leave-at-door orders
- PINs and e-signatures, to prevent fraudulent claims of unreceived orders
- Barcode scans, to ensure that there are no order mix-ups
✓ Tip: Confirm orders in advance and collect feedback later
Call customers 1-2 days before the delivery to confirm the order and any special instructions they’ve shared. After the order is complete, ask customers to share their thoughts. You could direct them to your review channels or prompt them to email or message you directly.
70%
The percent of consumers who rate live tracking visibility as very important to a satisfactory delivery²
Deliver mealtime merriment with catering
Managing large catering orders during the holidays is an opportunity to delight customers and significantly boost your revenue. By optimizing your ordering channels, leveraging data, preparing your delivery operations, and maintaining clear communication with customers and delivery people, you can ensure that your restaurant is well equipped to handle the holiday rush.
Ready to power your deliveries and streamline large order fulfillment? Explore the full set of solutions from Uber Direct and take the next step in scaling your holiday catering operations.
Related content
How on-demand delivery fits into your tech stack
Deliver more with hybrid delivery: combining in-house drivers and Uber Direct
7 tips to nail delivery experience management
¹Q4 2023 Restaurant Trends Report, Toast (March 2024).
²“The new brand builder,” Uber and Edelman (July 2023).
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