Outsourced service

Order Taking Services

Order taking is revenue capture, not customer service. Every unanswered call at peak is a sale that went somewhere else.

Discuss order taking services
Agent taking a customer order by phone
Dedicated ownershipFlexible capacity

What we handle

Capture the order, protect the accuracy.

Choose the tasks you need now and expand the scope when the workload changes.

01

Phone and chat order capture

Orders taken directly into your system with validation at the point of entry.

02

Upsell and cross-sell prompts

Approved prompts offered naturally rather than read mechanically.

03

Payment handling

Card payments taken through controls that keep card data out of agents' hands.

04

Order status and amendments

Changes, cancellations, and delivery queries handled inside your systems.

05

Peak and campaign surge capacity

Scale into trading peaks and promotional spikes without dropping calls.

06

Order accuracy checks

Validation and confirmation steps that keep error rates down as volume rises.

Designed around you

Order Taking Services built around your existing workflow.

We adapt to your tools, communication rhythm, approvals, brand standards, and escalation process.

  • Clear task ownership and priorities
  • Documented processes and access controls
  • Regular reporting and performance check-ins
  • Capacity that can grow with demand

Best suited for

  • Retailers and brands taking phone orders
  • Businesses with sharp promotional peaks
  • Catalogue and direct-response operations
  • Food, hospitality, and service booking businesses
Build a support plan

Free consultation

Start with a order taking services plan, not a sales call.

Tell us what your team is spending time on and we will scope the order taking services coverage, team size, and reporting that fits.

  • A scoped order taking services plan for your workload
  • Coverage hours, team size, and tools confirmed up front
  • No obligation and no cost for the consultation

FAQ

Order Taking Services outsourcing, answered directly.

Common questions about outsourcing order taking services.

Our agents take orders by phone and chat directly in your order system, confirm items, quantities, delivery details, and totals back to the customer, offer the upsell and cross-sell prompts you approve, take payment through the flow you specify, and handle order status questions, amendments, and cancellations within your rules. What stays with you is pricing, discount authority beyond set limits, stock and fulfillment, product advice that needs a specialist, and final say on disputes. If a customer asks for something outside the rules, the agent records it and passes it to your team instead of making a promise you have to honor.

PCI DSS governs cardholder data, so the goal is that agents never hold card details. Where your setup allows it, the customer keys the card number on their phone keypad or pays through a secure link while the agent stays on the line, and the digits go to your payment processor without appearing on the agent's screen or in the call recording. Agents do not write card numbers down or type them into order notes or chat. The exact flow depends on your processor and phone system and is mapped during scoping. You remain the merchant, and your own PCI obligations continue.

Agents work in your order entry system, whether that is Shopify, an ERP, a restaurant or booking platform, or a custom tool, with access to live stock, pricing, and delivery options. Named accounts with order-entry permissions are enough. They do not need admin rights. For the catalog, you supply product information, common customer questions, substitution rules, and current promotions. After the discovery call, a project manager maps the order flow, and agents are trained on it and on your brand standards before launch. Catalog and promotion changes need a clear route to the team, because an agent selling an expired offer creates a problem for everyone.

Yes, and this is a main reason businesses outsource order taking. Call volume during a TV spot, a catalog drop, a sale, or a holiday week can be far above a normal day, and an unanswered order call often means the sale goes elsewhere. Give us your promotional calendar and any past volume data so staffing can be planned and extra agents trained on your catalog before the peak. Evening, weekend, and holiday coverage is available. How much surge capacity you need, and how much notice it requires, is defined during scoping. Unplanned spikes are handled best when overflow rules are agreed in advance.

Accuracy comes from the process, not from asking agents to be careful. The agent reads the full order back before payment, including items, quantities, address, delivery date, and total. Address and required-field validation happens at entry where your system supports it. Completed orders are sampled and checked against call recordings or chat transcripts, and errors are logged by type so the cause can be corrected, whether that is a confusing product code or a training gap. Accuracy targets are set with you during scoping, and error and amendment figures appear in your regular reporting on the agreed rhythm.

You decide which prompts exist, when they are offered, and how many per call. A good prompt is relevant to what the customer just ordered and is offered once. Agents are trained to accept a no the first time and move on, because pressure on an order call costs repeat business. Quality reviews check that prompts were offered appropriately and that the customer clearly agreed to any added item, which also protects you from disputes later. Reporting shows how often each prompt is offered and accepted, so you can drop the ones that do not work. Anything involving subscriptions or recurring charges needs explicit wording you approve.

Ask how they staff for a spike and what happens to calls that exceed capacity. Ask to hear or see how an order is read back and confirmed. Ask how card payments are taken and whether agents ever hear card details. Ask whether agents enter orders directly into your system or take them on forms for re-keying, because re-keying adds delay and errors. Ask how catalog and promotion updates reach agents and how fast. Place a test order at a busy hour. The experience a customer has on that call is a better guide than any proposal.

If nearly all your orders arrive online and the phone rings a few times a day, a staff member can handle it and an outsourced team would sit idle. It is also a poor fit when every order needs a technical consultation, a custom quote, or a site visit, since that is a sales conversation, not order capture. If your order system cannot be accessed remotely or has no live stock view, agents will be taking orders blind, and that should be fixed first. And if phone orders fail mostly at fulfillment, more capacity on the phones will not help.

Related services

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