Your first week after switching to direct ordering

Switching to direct ordering is mostly invisible from the kitchen. The tablet still chirps; the receipt still prints; the cooks see a ticket the same shape they always have. What changes is what happens before and after.

Three things to confirm on day zero before you go live:

• POS routing. Place a $1 test order. Walk to the kitchen. Does the ticket print? Does it show the correct modifiers? If not, fix before opening.
• Delivery dispatch. If you offer delivery, confirm your built-in dispatch is connected and pickup-ETA is reasonable.
• Receipts. Print a real receipt. Verify the “reorder direct” URL is there and works.

The biggest operational miss is staff who don't know what to say when a customer calls or asks at the counter. Brief everyone before the first full day:

• If they ask about delivery apps: “We're still on Uber/DoorDash. But if you order direct on our site, you get [free delivery / a free side / 10% off your first order]. Same food, faster pickup.”
• If they call to order: “Happy to take that over the phone, and we can text you a link if you'd like to save your card for next time.”
• At the counter, when handing off pickup: “If you scan the QR on the receipt next time, you skip the line. Saved card, saved order, two taps.”

Script it. Stick it on the wall next to the POS. Three months in, it won't need scripting — but week one, it does.

Pull the top 200 most-recent customers from your POS or marketplace data and send a single SMS. Not a marketing blast — a note from the owner.

Expect 25–40% click-through and 8–15% conversion to first-direct-order within 48 hours. The customers you reach this way are your most likely to become permanent direct-only customers — they were going to come back anyway.

Don't turn off DoorDash and Uber. The right play is to let them keep bringing discovery while you systematically convert the customers they bring into direct repeat customers.

What to do instead:

• Match menu pricing across all channels. If you mark up 15% on the marketplaces, fine — but at least display the same item prices. Customers notice when they don't, and they read the gap as price gouging.
• Insert a flyer in every marketplace bag. The packaging is yours; use it. A single “Order direct next time” card with a QR has converted 6–9% of marketplace customers to direct in pilots.
• Cap marketplace promo spend. Don't buy boosts on DoorDash or Uber for now. The customers you acquire there cost you 30% forever; the customers you acquire on your direct channel cost you 0% forever.

Friday or Saturday night, pull the week's dashboard. You're looking for three signals:

1. Direct orders > 0. Sounds trivial. Most operators hit ~5–15 direct orders in week one without any marketing beyond the top-200 SMS.
2. Zero technical incidents. No missed tickets, no failed payments, no support tickets you didn't expect. If you have one, triage Monday morning.
3. Repeat-rate signal. Did any of the customers from day 3's SMS reorder this week? Even one or two is a green flag — it means the second-order machine is working.

Week one is the operational handoff. Weeks 2–6 are where the lifecycle marketing engine starts compounding. Three flows to ship in order:

1. Week 2: Welcome flow (3-email sequence after first direct order).
2. Week 3: Receipt-driven review request (SMS 60 minutes post-pickup).
3. Week 4: Win-back flow (triggers at 45 days dormant).

If you ship those three flows by week 5, the average customer journey is completely instrumented — and your direct-order share starts moving 4–8 percentage points a month on its own.