Automating Orders with AI
Order Agent gives DSR's the ability to manage and place orders in a fraction of the time that it would take handling them manually. In this article we'll cover an overview of the product, then walk through exactly how communication goes back and forth between operators and DSRs from inbound message to delivery confirmation.
Note: Order Agent is an additional module on top of the core e-Commerce Pepper offering. Reach out to your customer success representative for more information on activating Order Agent.
Product Overview
What if all of your orders from every operator on every channel were visible in a single place? With Order Agent, Pepper takes text, email, and voicemails from operators and turns them into orders for Distributor employees to review.
By using AI to automatically generate unstructured text and voice into orders, sellers save time, can take more orders, and build relationships by becoming consultative sellers.
Key Benefits
Save DSR time to be more consultative: Always-on, automatic order intake means reps don't spend time transcribing emails, texts, and voicemails into orders. Teams can handle more accounts and prospects, more effectively.
Everything in one place: Order Agent collects the dozens of scattered emails, texts, and voicemails into a single place in your app. No missing orders, and no worrying that something slipped through the cracks.
High first-pass accuracy while reps control the last mile: Intelligent edits let reps translate operator slang into accurate orders and tailor each item to what they know the customer wants. Every edit helps Pepper's AI get smarter, training the model to your specific customer base.
Lift order size with more operators on Pepper: With every order flowing through your app, more operators receive confirmation messages prompting them to download it. Over time that raises adoption, and in-app promotions and AI-powered recommendations get those operators to reliably spend over 20% more with you than with their other suppliers.
End-to-end Walkthrough
Inbound Messages
The beginning of the workflow starts when an operator texts, emails, or calls your dedicated number or email address to place an order.
The order can be as long as it needs to be, and will be received by Pepper for processing. Successful orders will receive a text or email as seen above that the order was successfully submitted.
Filtering and Sorting the Inbound List
The inbound list opens with the newest order at the top.
Filter and sort above the list changes both what you see and the order you see it in.
Assigned to narrows the list to specific people. Select one or more colleagues, or select Unassigned to see only the orders nobody has picked up. Your own name appears first, marked (Me). Selecting nobody shows every inbound regardless of who it is assigned to.
Sort offers three orders:
Newest-oldest. The default. Most recent arrival first.
Oldest-newest. Oldest arrival first, so the longest-waiting order is at the top.
Closest to cutoff time. Orders whose delivery cutoff is soonest come first, regardless of when they arrived.
Click Apply to commit your choices. Your filter and sort choices are kept the next time you open the inbound list.
Tip: Pair Unassigned with Closest to cutoff time at the start of a shift. That puts the orders nobody owns and that are closest to missing a cutoff at the top of the list.
Filtering the inbound list by status
Three pills above the inbound list narrow it by where each order has got to. Each pill carries a count.
Open holds everything still needing attention.
Closed holds orders that are finished with, both the ones submitted into your ERP and the ones that were rejected.
All holds both.
Note: Rejected orders sit under Closed alongside submitted ones. If you are looking for something a colleague rejected, that is where it is.
Assigning an Inbound to a Colleague
You can now hand an inbound to a colleague instead, and give them access to the account if they do not have it yet.
Who sees the list. Assigning to a colleague is off unless three things are true at once: your distributor has turned the setting on, you have the assign to others permission on your Order Agent employee settings, and you have Order Agent access. If any is missing, you see Assign to me and Unassign as before, with no list.
The three groups. The list is grouped, and the group tells you what you can do with that row. Rows are alphabetical within each group.
Recently active. Colleagues who can see this account and have submitted an order on it in the last 30 days.
Available. Colleagues who can see this account but have not submitted an order on it recently.
Needs access. Colleagues who cannot see this account. You cannot assign to them directly; the row offers Give access instead.
Your own row is marked you.
To assign an inbound to a colleague:
Open the inbound, or hover its row in the inbound list on web.
Click the assign control. On a phone or tablet the list opens as a sheet from the bottom of the screen.
(Optional) Type into Search employees to filter the list.
Select the colleague. The inbound is reassigned and the list closes.
An inbound has one assignee at a time. Assigning to a colleague replaces whoever was assigned before. Unassign leaves the inbound with no owner.
To give a colleague access to an account:
Find them in the Needs access group and select Give access.
Confirm on the dialog Give [name] access to [account]?
Select Give access to confirm. The row moves out of Needs access and becomes assignable.
Business Assignment
Pepper will match the inbound message to whichever restaurant or business that phone number or email is assigned to. If the number is assigned to multiple locations, the order will be inbound to whichever business name is mentioned in the text, and fall back to whichever business that number last placed an order for.
Best Practices: For operators that leave many calls or texts for orders that are assigned to multiple businesses, ask that they include the business name as it exists in your ERP in the message - this will help the auto assignment and ensure orders are left for correct businesses.
Unknown Addresses
If a number or email does not exist in Pepper, they'll receive a message inviting them to contact your office to be added as a customer:
Note: At this time, users cannot customize the outgoing message for unknown numbers.
Order Reception and The Order Agent
Orders are received and assigned in the order in which they are placed. Once an order makes it to the inbox, DSR's will be notified on whichever channel they are subscribed (email and SMS):
Reps can check orders in their inbox, available via the inbox icon in the account picker:
Once in the inbox, reps can review Pepper's speech to orders, make substitutions, and confirm orders.
Pepper's AI learns from substitutions you make! Every update or change a user makes to an order continually trains our model, which is customized to each operator at each business you service.
Order Agent respects fulfillment instructions - If operators ask for delivery at certain times or days, Order Agent will do its best to schedule the order for that time, if applicable
Delivery confirmation
Once confirmed, operators receive a message on the channel the order was placed confirming their order and prompting them to download your app to see order details and track deliveries - naturally raising operator adoption.
In-Line Substitutions
If an item is out of stock or unavailable, the in line swap flow keeps everything in one place, allowing reps to swap items while viewing the original order. Pre populated groups surface the most relevant matches first, with options ranked so the best alternatives appear at the top. An inline search box within the same panel lets reps quickly refine replacements without leaving the order screen. The result is a faster, smoother workflow with less friction.