Your restaurant might craft mouthwatering dishes, handle large-scale orders effortlessly, and plate them with lightning speed. But do you know how to win over high-value customers while serving them off-premises? If not, you’re in the right place.

During the Food on Demand Catering Growth Forum, Genevieve Babineau, Senior Marketing Manager at ezCater, hosted a discussion with panelists who place large, frequent catering orders at work. We’ve gathered their insights in an on-demand webinar for restaurant operators. 

Whether you missed the Food on Demand Catering Growth Forum or want to catch up at your own pace, we’ve got you covered. Here are a few tips straight from the panelists, complete with timestamps, to help you focus on the strategies that matter most to your catering success. 

1. Deliver on-time, as-ordered catering to uphold clients’ professional reputation

“If there’s a two-hour-long meeting and then 45 minutes where lunch is, and if that lunch is not ready, the restaurant is not getting blamed, I’m taking the blame,” explains Emily Egan, Executive Assistant at Salesforce (timestamp: 5:20). 

In other words, when clients’ reputations are on the line, they need a reliable caterer who can deliver — on time and as expected. 

“Reliability is a really big aspect of what we value,” adds Erin Smith, Financial Manager at Boston University (timestamp: 8:32). “I want to be able to click ‘Send’ on that order and have my complete trust that it will arrive on time, it will arrive hot or cold, depending on what we ordered, and that they’ll be able to find our location.” 

Ordering food is just one of many tasks on a workplace orderer’s plate, but they’re the ones who get blamed when things go wrong. It’s important to understand the pressure they’re under and meet them where they’re at. Insider tip: According to the 2024 Feeding the Workplace report, 67% more orderers are using mobile devices to place food orders compared to last year. Now is the perfect time to prioritize a seamless, reliable mobile ordering solution.

Watch the webinar to hear more from these high-value customers.

2. Build confidence by keeping customers in the loop — from order placement to delivery

“Communication is huge for me, especially with teams traveling on the road,” says Emily Pettygrove, Associate Athletic Director, Sports Nutrition at Santa Clara University (timestamp: 7:00). 

There’s a lot of logistics that are going into that and things can change, so I think having good communication with a caterer is a huge piece that makes me choose places over other places.”  

Ongoing communication not only simplifies complex logistics but also eases concerns about order arrival and delivery. Pro tip: According to the 2024 Feeding the Workplace report, 97% of orderers would like to have delivery tracking updates for all of their catering orders, but only 25% of operators surveyed said they’re investing in delivery tracking.

Hear more from Emily by watching our webinar.

3. Boast your ability to handle large orders (and back it up with results)

Workplace food ordering  is on the rise, and so is on-site attendance. With that said, the panelists emphasize they often reach out to confirm a restaurant can successfully manage their group size before placing a large order.

“I realize I order for a significant amount of people,” explains Vladimir Ivanov, Senior Operations Manager at Amazon (timestamp: 6:26). “I work as a multi-site manager, so I usually approach every order with a lot of consideration for the restaurant. If I know it’s going to be a huge order, I reach out to them a week in advance, just to make sure they get a chance to order the materials.”  

The secret to earning their trust and repeat business? Demonstrate your ability to handle large orders upfront, so customers never need to question if you’re prepared.

Hear how Amazon works with ezCater to manage large orders for their workforce. 

4. Win over customers with menus that satisfy a variety of dietary restrictions and tastes

Beyond great communication and a readiness to crush large orders, your menu items must be customizable for dietary needs in order to attract high-value customers — and meet the expectations of their eaters. 

“Of our 18 teams, only four have no one with any kind of dietary restrictions, so [the ability to meet dietary needs] plays a huge role in choosing places for me,” says Emily Pettygrove (timestamp: 11:00). “Being able to have on-off options — if you can get a buffet, you can also get a one-off option for someone who is gluten-free — can be really helpful.”

So, you might want to reconsider your menu with the understanding that finding options that meet dietary requirements is the top food for work challenge for 30% of corporate orderers.

Learn how leading companies handle orders for employees with dietary restrictions.

5. Make presentation a priority across photos, portions, and packaging 

Clients eat with their eyes before they actually taste the food. First impressions matter. 

“If you have these nice, elegant pictures on your website and I order that and the steak doesn’t look like the steak, you know you Photoshopped it, it comes back on me,” explains Jewelressa Dunbar, Senior Office Manager at a luxury retail store (timestamp: 7:29).

With this in mind, restaurant operators seeking high-value clients must remember to:

• Use good lighting and minimal editing when photographing your menu items.
• Take photos with realistic portion sizes, so customers know what to expect.
• Remain mindful of the presentation when packaging workplace food orders.

Learn more about the importance of packaging and presentation in our webinar.

6. Become a true catering partner with set-up support for seamless events

High-value clients are looking for catering partners that go the extra mile — including helping to set up catering rather than just delivering drop-off catering.

“When I’m hosting an event, there’s a whole line item of set-up time. If your delivery person will actually help set up, knowing that in advance, I can carve out other things to make sure that we start on time, and that whoever the audience is, whether its staff or a client, that they get the experience that we were trying to deliver,” adds Jewelressa Dunbar (timestamp: 8:01). 

To learn the simple steps it takes to become a true event partner for high-value clients, watch our webinar.

Elevate your catering game like a pro 

Top-tier clients drive big-ticket orders — but what exactly are they looking for in a catering partner? The above considerations are a great place to start, but you’ll want to watch ezCater’s on-demand webinar “Delighting influential high-value customers off-premises,” to truly level up your catering services.