Operational Metrics

Learn about the operational metrics impacting customer satisfaction and your marketplace ranking.

Our customers plan their events with the expectation that the food will arrive on time, in full, and as expected. When orders are late, in minor situations it can cause frustration and in major situations, it can cost people jobs, clients, their reputation, and money. It's safe to say that each and every order submitted to your store is high stakes.

Please review our Operational Metrics to understand which metrics we take into account when ranking your location in the search results. Track how your store is performing on a 90-day rolling basis by logging into your ezManage account and clicking on the Operational Reporting tab. Watch our video below to learn more about this new reporting tab in ezManage. 

Sign into ezManage to view how your store is performing.

Metrics are calculated on a 90-day rolling basis

Operational Metrics Definitions 

On-time acceptance 

Customers expect a prompt response from the caterer once they place their order. Orders should be accepted within 15 minutes of being placed during operating hours. Orders placed outside of normal operating hours don’t count against your response time.  Once your store is open, you’ll be on the clock. Your store’s average response time is shown on your ezCater marketplace listing under performance metrics for customers to see, so make sure you stay on top of this metric.

Best Practice: Please accept the order as quickly as possible to avoid automated phone calls to the store. We recommend having multiple ezManage users with text message notifications and email notifications turned on. If you have an Apple device, download our iOS app for sound alerts.

Order Accuracy

​​Customers expect their food to arrive on time, in full, and exactly as expected. Order accuracy is the total percent of orders for which no customer issues have been reported, such as: missing food, missing utensils, food bad or inedible, dietary requests not accommodated, etc. 

Best Practice: Make a designated area to organize your catering packaging and utensils. Use the kitchen print out as a checklist when handing off the order to your drivers, or ezDispatch. We recommend building SOPs for your catering operation, and checklists to make sure everything is provided on the hand-off, and double check for any special requests or dietary restrictions on the kitchen print-out. 

Delivery Updates 

Customers expect delivery updates once their food has left the restaurant and has been delivered. These updates give our customers peace of mind that their order will arrive right on time. This metric tracks the total % of orders that have both an assigned driver and delivery status updates recorded on the order.

Best Practice: To easily provide delivery updates, download and use the “ezManage - Delivery” app for both iOS and Android devices, or scan the QR code on the kitchen print-out to provide customers with SMS updates, easily navigate to the drop-off location, and call the customer once you arrive on-site. Consider fulfilling orders with ezDispatch to meet these criteria. 

Food Ready for ezDispatch 

Drivers expect the food to be packaged up and ready to go by the pick-up time. This metric calculates the percentage of orders which are ready at the scheduled pickup time listed on the ezManage  print-out. When using ezDispatch, any delivery issues after handoff to the driver do not count against your reliability. If you keep drivers waiting, they will notify our customer service team which will hurt your performance in this metric. 

Best Practice: Hand-off the food by the specified pick-up time listed on the print out to avoid delays and ensure the customer gets their food on time. Make sure you're communicating with your staff when the driver will be picking up the food. We recommend circling the pick-up time listed on the print-out so everyone is aware of what time the food needs to be ready. 

If you haven’t used ezDispatch, this metric is not counted toward your reliability.

Rejection rate 

Manage your capacity proactively by using the tools in ezManage to ensure you never have to reject an order.  By optimizing your lead time and capacity settings, you'll guarantee you're only getting orders you know your store can handle.  Unless you are a high-volume caterer handling over 100 orders per month, even a single rejection will cause you to fall below standard. 

Best Practice: Start with a conservative lead time (24-48 hours), before you lower your lead time to capture same day orders. The name of the game is quality over quantity, make sure every order goes perfectly before trying to get additional orders.

Before you reject an order, we recommend calling our customer service team, and we’ll be able to help you figure out a solution whether it's working out a new delivery time with the customer, or requesting an ezDispatch driver. You can reach us 24/7 by phone, email, or chat. 

Cancellation rate 

Accepting and then canceling a customer’s order is extremely damaging to your reliability. Unless you are a high-volume caterer handling over 100 orders per month, even a single cancellation will cause you to fall below standard. Cancellations by the customer will not count against your total. 

Best Practice: If you're having issues with order capacity, we suggest adding some capacity targets, to alert you once your store has hit its daily limit. If you're having issues with finding drivers to fulfill orders, consider requesting ezDispatch. ezDispatch can be requested with as little as 90 minutes notice from the event time and can deliver up to 20 miles away. 

On time delivery 

On-time delivery means a handoff to the customer at any point during the 15-minute window that we provide to our catering partners. Both early and late deliveries count against your reliability. 

ezCater adds the 15 minute buffer on all orders after 9am excluding takeout, Relish, and Direct Entry orders. 

Best Practice: Assign your own drivers to orders to ensure there are timestamps and photos attached to every delivery.  The customer eat time and delivery contact will be on the print out, or available through the driver app. Drivers will also receive reminder text messages the morning of the event if they are assigned days in advance. 

Star Rating 

You need an average customer rating of 4.8 stars or higher. If you're new to ezCater, we'll use Yelp reviews to calculate this rating. Once you have 8 customer reviews on ezCater orders, we'll use those orders to calculate your star rating. We use data from the past 90 days to calculate your star rating, this ensures that you are able to make improvements over time and turn your store's performance around.

Best Practices: 

• Deliver orders on time
• Provide excellent service from receipt of the order through delivery
• Deliver exactly what the customer ordered 
• Remember to include tableware
• Keep your menu up to date
• Have the right photos for products

Sign into ezManage to view your operational metrics and see where you stand against our network standards. If you have any questions please email partnersuccess@ezcater.com