Their usual, on the till before they've said hello: caller ID for your takeaway and more phone orders answered on a Friday

It's 6.40 on a Friday. The phone rings, and it's a regular who's ordered the same thing for two years. Your staff still ask for the name, the postcode, the house number, and spell the street back. Meanwhile the second line rings out. Often that caller doesn't try again. They open an app and order from someone else.

Caller ID for your takeaway fixes the slow part of a phone order. The caller's number and details are on the till before you've said hello, so regulars are done in a few taps and the next call gets answered. GofoodPOS does this with an app on your shop's Android phone, and we set it up with you.

The regular's details are on the till as it rings

Caller ID puts the number, name and saved addresses on the GofoodPOS till, so phone orders take less time and fewer calls ring out.

• Caller ID app
• Saved addresses
• Straight to the kitchen
• Chinese dish names

The short answer

Caller ID for a takeaway shows who's ringing on the till as the phone rings, with their saved addresses. Staff confirm the address instead of taking it down, so each regular's call is shorter and more calls get answered in the rush. GofoodPOS does it with the Caller ID app on your shop's Android phone.

Where the Friday phone orders go

Plenty of customers still ring, especially regulars at a Chinese takeaway or a chip shop. They know the menu, they know their usual, and they want to talk to you. Those are your best customers. They're also the ones you lose without noticing, because a call that rings out leaves no trace. You never see the order that went elsewhere.

The busy hour is when it happens. One person is on the phone writing down an address, the fryer's going, a driver's waiting at the counter. Every minute spent on "and what's the postcode again?" is a minute the other line isn't being answered.

The money case: a worked example

This is an example to show the sums, not a promise. Your prices and your phone will be different.

A survey of 2,000 UK adults for Aqua found the average takeaway order is around £27, and nearly half of people said Friday is the night they're most likely to order. Say quicker regular calls mean you answer 3 more calls on a Friday that would have rung out.

Three calls on a Friday is one every twenty minutes across a busy hour. It's not many. But each one is a regular who'd otherwise have found the place down the road.

Before

• Name, postcode and house number taken down again
• Second line rings out while you write
• That caller orders from an app instead

With GofoodPOS

£4,212a year, 3 more Friday calls (example)

• Their name and address are on the till as it rings
• Confirm the address, take the order
• Next call answered sooner

How GofoodPOS gets more phone orders through

The caller's details pop up as it rings

Install the Caller ID app on your shop's Android phone. When a call comes in, the number and the customer's details appear on the GofoodPOS till while it's still ringing. A returning customer comes up with their saved addresses, so your staff pick the right one and go straight to the food. A new caller's number is already filled in, and next time they're a regular.

1. 1The shop's Android phone rings
2. 2Caller's details pop up on the till
3. 3Pick their saved address
4. 4Ticket prints in the kitchen

A till your staff already know

Phone orders are about speed, and nobody wants to relearn a till in November. GofoodPOS lets you choose the layout on each device. There's a Legacy layout that looks like the SambaPOS ticket screen many takeaway staff already use, and a left-handed version. Counter, phone, collection, delivery and eat-in orders all go through the same screen.

Before

• New till, new buttons, slow first week
• Staff ask each other where things are

With GofoodPOS

• Legacy layout like the SambaPOS screen
• Left-handed layout if you need it
• Phone, counter and delivery on one screen

The ticket reaches the kitchen in a language they read

Once the order's taken, it prints to your kitchen printer, or shows on a kitchen screen with a station for each part of the kitchen. You can add Chinese dish names to kitchen tickets, so the chef isn't decoding an English menu name with a queue at the counter. Fewer shouted questions means bags go out faster, and the person on the phone stays on the phone.

Before

• Handwritten slip, hard to read
• Chef shouts to check the order

With GofoodPOS

• Ticket prints with Chinese dish names
• Or shows on the kitchen screen by station
• Nobody leaves the phone to explain

Online orders don't get missed while you're on the phone

Your phone regulars and your online customers arrive on the same till. While someone's taking a call, an online order keeps sounding a loud alert until it's accepted, and missed orders show in your end-of-day email from reports and insights. So the busy hour takes calls and online orders together, and you can see in the morning whether anything slipped. If a regular would rather tap than ring, your own ordering page saves their address and lets them reorder in one tap, with £0 commission.

Before

• App tablet beeps behind the counter
• Nobody free to look at it

With GofoodPOS

• Online order alerts on the same till
• Keeps sounding until someone accepts
• Missed orders in the end-of-day email

Want to see your own regulars pop up on the till? Start a free trial and we'll set it up with you.

What you need

A GofoodPOS till on an Android tablet or Windows, and an Android phone for the shop number with the Caller ID app on it. If you're buying kit, our tablet tills start from £129 ex VAT and receipt printers from £69 ex VAT. You can keep your own card machine: card payments at the till are recorded from it.

One thing to check now. Openreach is switching off the old analogue phone network on 31 January 2027. Many older caller ID boxes for tills read the analogue line, so if yours does, it may stop working when your line moves to digital. Ask your phone provider how your number will ring after the switch, and we'll check it fits with the Caller ID app when we set you up.

Questions owners ask

Will it work with my shop's phone number?

The Caller ID app runs on an Android phone, so it works when your shop's calls ring on that phone. If your number rings on a landline handset today, tell us how it's set up and we'll go through the options with you. We'd rather sort that before you rely on it on a Friday.

Is it hard to switch tills?

No. We load your menu, set up your printers and get the Caller ID app running with you. The Legacy layout means staff coming from SambaPOS find their way round quickly. We give setup and support in English and Chinese.

Do I need new hardware?

Not always. GofoodPOS runs on Android tablets and Windows, and works with network receipt printers and cash drawers. If what you have won't do the job, our shop has tills, printers and kitchen screens that work with it.

What about customers who don't ring?

They can order from your own page instead. It shares the same menu and orders with the till, so you're not keeping two systems up to date. We wrote about bringing regulars back with one-tap reorder if you want more on that.

In short

• A call that rings out on a Friday is a sale you never see. Shorter regular calls mean more calls answered.
• GofoodPOS Caller ID puts the caller's details and saved addresses on the till as the phone rings.
• Tickets reach the kitchen with Chinese dish names, and online orders keep alerting while you're on a call.
• As a worked example, 3 more Friday calls at £27 comes to £4,212 a year.

Ready to take more calls in the rush? Start your free trial, or ask us a question about your phone setup first.