Order Pacing is a feature that gives restaurants the ability to set a cap on the number of orders that can be fulfilled every 15-minute, 30-minute, or 60-minute time slot, on a recurring basis by day of week and time of day.
Examples:
I can only work on 10 orders at a time for every 15 minutes during lunch Mondays to Fridays.
My kitchen gets busy on Saturdays at 7 PM so we can’t do as many orders at that time.
I have more staff on Fridays so we can accept more orders.
Once a restaurant hits their order limit for a time slot, the guest gets quoted the next available time while still being able to place the order.
What fulfillment types does this apply to?
This applies to pickup and delivery orders. So, keep in mind that if you are a restaurant with both fulfillment types active, your pacing maximums will apply to both of these order types. This will not apply to table ordering.
How does the pacing logic work?
Sociavore will track the prepare-by time (this is the time the customer or delivery driver expects to pick up an order) for incoming orders and monitors those times for your pacing cap.
Example:
Let's assume a restaurant set pacing to max 5 orders every 15 minutes from 7-9 PM. This means that, at most, 5 orders are due to be ready every 15 minutes.
Once you already have 5 orders due from 7 - 7:15 PM, the earliest a new incoming order can be due at 6:45 PM and 7:15 PM (the next time slots).
What will a guest see when my pacing max has been reached?
For a customer placing an ASAP order, the only adjustment is the estimated time they are quoted for pickup or delivery. (This takes into account Prep Time + your pacing threshold).
If a customer schedules an order for the future, and any time slots have hit their order capacity, these slots will not be visible.
For example, if the orders for the time slot 10:30 AM already reached the cap, the customer will not see the 10:30 AM anymore in the options for pickup and delivery.
How do I set it up?
Order Pacing Settings can be found in the Menus Dashboard > Order Pacing tab.
Order Pacing
To set the default order capacity for your store, select from the following:
No Limit (unlimited orders)
Limit Orders - choose number of orders every 15, 30, or 60 minutes interval
Order Pacing Exceptions
Restaurant locations can set ‘Order Pacing Exceptions’. These exceptions will apply to the days of the week and time ranges you select.
For example, the restaurant location has a default order pacing of 20 orders max per ‘60-minute’ interval. That means when pre-ordering or for ASAP orders, we will only allow up to 20 orders for each 60 min interval.
On Fridays, you want to apply exceptions:
9am to 5pm: no limit
5pm to 8pm : limit to 30 orders max every 60 minutes interval
To set up each exception:
Click a day of the week and enter the time range.
Select from the ff: "no limit" or "limit orders."
If you select "limit orders", enter the max number of orders and interval.