Cake orders by phone: how a bakery can stop missing them

A cake order is seven facts

Date. Size. Flavor. Filling. Finish. The message on top. Who's collecting, and when. That's a custom cake order, and if one of the seven is missing you find out on Friday night with a piping bag in your hand.

So the way a bakery stops missing phone orders isn't complicated. Somebody, or something, has to answer every call, ask for all seven every time, and write them down where the decorator will see them. We make a phone line, answered by an AI, that does that part. It doesn't take the deposit and it doesn't enter the order in your system. Your staff do both, working from a note that's complete.

Why the calls get missed

Bakery hours are upside down. You start before dawn and the counter rush is over by ten. The people who order cakes ring at lunch or after work, when there's one person out front and she's boxing a dozen pastries for someone who's double-parked.

The call goes to voicemail. What you get is "Hi, I wanted to ask about a birthday cake for the weekend, can you call me?" No date, no size, sometimes no number. You ring back at three and they don't pick up. By the time you reach each other they've ordered from the supermarket.

What the line asks the caller

You tell it what your order sheet needs, and it works through that in conversation, not like a form being read out. For a custom cake that usually means:

• The date and pickup time, checked against your lead time. If you need four days and they want it tomorrow, it says so.
• Size, in your terms. Servings, inches, tiers, sheet sizes, whatever's on your menu.
• Flavor and filling, from the list you've given it.
• The finish. Buttercream or fondant, colors, a theme, and whether they have a reference picture. Your instructions can give callers your own inbox for that, because the line's email address keeps the words of an email and not the attachments.
• The message, spelled back letter by letter. Ask any decorator how many ways there are to spell Caitlin.
• Name and phone number, for the confirmation.
• Anything about allergies, written down in the caller's own words.

Allergy questions get written down, not answered

If a caller asks whether the cake can be made nut-free, the line doesn't promise anything. It isn't in your kitchen, and only you know what shares a mixer with what. It writes down what the caller said and tells them the bakery will go through it with them when the order is confirmed.

We think that's the right split even when a person answers the phone. The counter takes the note. The baker gives the answer.

The deposit stays with your staff

Most bakeries take a deposit on custom work, and they should. It's the only thing standing between you and a three-tier cake nobody collects. But the line never takes a card number and never agrees to a charge. That's a rule of ours and it doesn't bend. The trust page has the rest of them.

So the call ends like this. The caller hears that the order is a request until the bakery confirms it, and that someone will be in touch about the deposit. Your staff ring or email back, take payment however you normally do, and enter the order in whatever you use, a binder included. There's no link between CosVoice and bakery ordering software, so that entry is always made by a person.

That callback is also where you catch what only a baker would. A fondant finish for a garden party in August, for one.

Lead times, sell-outs and saying no

A lot of order calls should end in a polite no, or in "not that, but this". The line can only manage that if you've written your rules down. How many days' notice for custom work. The last pickup time. The weeks you stop taking orders because of a holiday. The things you just don't make.

Give it the alternatives too. If custom orders are closed for Saturday but there are always six-inch celebration cakes in the case that can take a piped message, that's a sale saved. And it won't invent a price. It quotes from your price list, and where a design needs a quote from you, it says so and takes the details.

Catering trays for offices

The other phone order worth chasing is the office tray. Somebody's assistant rings on Tuesday about Thursday's meeting: two dozen assorted pastries, a fruit platter, coffee for twenty. These callers are in a hurry, and they reorder if the first one goes well.

The line takes the headcount, the date and time, pickup or delivery and the address, the company name, and who the invoice goes to. It answers from your catering menu and your delivery area and stays inside both. Offices like things in writing, so it helps that the line has its own email address. The text of a message sent there is stored with the line's history and forwarded to the inbox you choose.

What lands on your phone afterwards

Most bakeries don't hand out a new number. They forward the calls the counter can't get to, so the line only answers when you couldn't. If that's new to you, conditional call forwarding explained covers it, and the restaurants and cafés page has a sample brief.

Every call ends with a written summary. For a cake order, a good one reads something like this made-up example:

"Custom cake request. Pickup Saturday the 14th, 11am. Eight-inch round, two layers, chocolate sponge with raspberry filling, white buttercream, gold lettering: Happy 40th Caitlin (C-A-I-T-L-I-N). Caller says one guest has a tree nut allergy and wants to talk it through. Told her the bakery will confirm today and arrange the deposit. Callback number taken."

Common questions

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