One queue for orders arriving across three channels
An order desk taking 60 to 90 messages a day by email, phone and messaging app, where a substitution changes allergen, pack size and margin at once.
A foodservice wholesaler turning over under three million pounds, supplying independent cafes, restaurants and schools.
A delivered Orchyn engagement. The client is anonymised at their request. The company and the people are not named. The operation, the workflow, the controls and the outcome are as delivered.
The commercial problem
Customers value speed. The desk works from fragmented information. Staff check stock, cut off times, delivery zones, previous prices and account notes before they can give a safe answer.
The company loses capacity at the exact moment a customer needs certainty. Slow or inconsistent answers weaken trust, drive repeat calls and make margin harder to protect on substitutions.
How the work runs before
- A customer sends an order, a query or a change by email, phone or messaging app.
- A member of the service team reads it and retypes the request into an order sheet.
- They check product codes and price history, then contact the buyer if an item is unavailable.
- They ask the transport planner separately whether a late order still fits the route.
- Replies are written from scratch. Order changes are sometimes missed between inboxes.
- At the end of the day staff reconcile email, messages and the order sheet to find what is still open.
What makes it hard to automate safely
- A substitution changes allergen, pack size, price and margin together. It cannot be proposed and applied automatically.
- A firm order and a general availability question look similar and must be told apart.
- Cut off decisions depend on live operational context and stay with the transport planner.
- Messages contain shorthand, abbreviations and recurring habits specific to each account.
What we change first
The desk was rebuilt around one prioritised queue before any model was applied. The business agreed standard labels for order, change, stock query, delivery query, credit query and urgent escalation. It also wrote down its substitution and communication policy so there was something to check an answer against.
The redesigned workflow
- Messages from the approved channels enter one consolidated queue.
- The model classifies the request, extracts account, item, quantity, date and urgency, then links it to the customer record.
- It drafts an order record or a reply using approved language, showing the original message alongside.
- Where live stock or route information is needed, the workflow performs a read only lookup and shows the result to a person.
- The service team approves the order entry or the reply. Any substitution, price variation, credit or cut off override routes to the buyer or the transport planner.
Where the model stops
The model classifies, extracts and drafts. It does not confirm an order, promise availability, agree a price or send anything to a customer. Every outbound message is approved by a person first.
What we learned
The bottleneck was never typing speed. It was that nobody could see the whole day's work in one place. Consolidating the queue delivered more than the extraction did. It is the part that would still be worth doing if the model were removed.