How to get more phone orders for your restaurant

Most phone orders are lost for plain reasons: no one answers, the line is busy, the caller cannot get menu answers, or the order takes too long. A busy pizza shop, deli, or takeout spot can lose a lot of phone business just because the phone feels hard to use.

Start by listening to a few of your own calls. Write down where people get stuck. Use this quick checklist:

• Did someone answer on the first ring?
• Could the caller hear the menu clearly?
• Did the caller get a ready time?
• Was the order repeated back before hanging up?
• Did the caller have to call back for hours, address, or parking?

A simple phone script helps. Try: "Thanks for calling. What can I get started for you?" Then move straight to items, sizes, and notes. If your team is too busy to do that on every call, an AI phone host can handle the routine parts and keep the call moving.

The easier the call feels, the more likely the caller stays on the line and finishes the order. Keep the menu information current, especially prices, hours, address, and sold-out items. If callers hear conflicting answers, they often hang up and order somewhere else.

A good setup for phone orders is:

1. Keep the live menu accurate.
2. Make sure hours and address are easy to say out loud.
3. Decide how you want pickup and delivery handled.
4. Train whoever answers to collect name, phone number, items, modifiers, and notes in the same order every time.

Example: say your average phone order is $28. If a caller adds one side or drink because the phone host mentioned it, that can raise the order value a bit. Plug in your own average order and your own upsell items. If you want a cleaner starting point, ROAL reads the restaurant website, Google Maps link, or menu pages and builds a phone host in about two minutes at /try.

You do not need a long speech. You need a short, repeatable flow that sounds natural and gets the caller moving. The goal is to reduce back-and-forth and make the order feel easy.

Here is a practical script flow:

• "Thanks for calling [restaurant name]. What can I get started for you?"
• "Is that for pickup or delivery?"
• "What name should I put on the order?"
• "What number can we reach you at?"
• "Your total is [amount]. We should have that ready at [time]."
• "Let me repeat that back to make sure I got everything right."

Keep the script short enough that staff actually use it. If your team is rushed, the script often gets skipped. That is where ROAL can help: it takes items, sizes, modifiers, and notes, speaks the caller’s language, confirms the order back, and sends a clean ticket to the kitchen screen. It also does not take card numbers over the phone, so payment can happen at pickup or however you already take it.

If your phone rings into a busy signal or goes unanswered, those calls often turn into lost orders. The fix is not always hiring more people. Sometimes it is forwarding calls so someone answers at the right times.

Many restaurants use call forwarding for all calls, or only when busy or unanswered. The exact code depends on your carrier and plan, so always confirm with your carrier and test with a call. Common examples include 72 and 73 on many landlines, *21number# and ##21# on some GSM carriers for all calls, *61number# for unanswered calls, and *67number# for busy calls. Business VoIP systems usually set forwarding in the web portal.

A simple owner checklist:

• Test forwarding during lunch and dinner.
• Decide whether to forward all calls or only busy/unanswered calls.
• Make sure the forwarded line still gives callers the right menu and hours.
• Turn forwarding off when you do not need it.

ROAL gives each location its own phone line automatically once you claim the host, and you can forward your existing number to it. That helps keep the restaurant’s current number in place while routing calls where they can actually be answered.

More phone orders do not help if the kitchen gets messy tickets or missing details. You want every call to turn into a clean order that the kitchen can read quickly.

A good kitchen flow looks like this:

1. The caller places the order.
2. The order is confirmed back on the call.
3. The ticket lands on the kitchen screen.
4. The team marks it new, preparing, or ready.

That matters because phone orders often arrive during a rush. If the kitchen has to decode handwriting or guess the modifiers, service slows down. ROAL’s dashboard includes live tickets, call history with transcripts and recordings, a menu editor, hours, FAQs, upsell suggestions, and multi-location menus.

Here is a worked example you can swap for your own numbers: if your restaurant takes 40 completed phone orders in a week at $28 each, that is $1,120 in phone order sales before any add-ons. If you can make the order flow smoother, you are not just answering phones better; you are making the whole kitchen run cleaner.

Not every call should be handled the same way. Some questions are better answered by staff, especially allergy-sensitive requests, catering, complaints, and manager requests. A good phone setup should know when to hand off.

Use a simple rule:

• Routine order, hours, address, parking, menu question: answer it directly.
• Allergy-sensitive question, complaint, catering request, or manager request: send it to staff with a summary.

That keeps the phone moving without forcing the host to guess. It also helps the team focus on the calls that need judgment. ROAL can hand those tougher calls to staff and leave a summary so the next person knows what happened.

If you want to see whether this fits your shop, you can Build a free test host from your website or menu pages and try it in the browser before you go live. The owner chooses the voice and name, can answer unknown questions once, and the host learns it from then on. That is useful for menu changes, local directions, or common questions you get all the time.