Orders appear as spoken
The caller says two flat whites and a chicken wrap, and the lines are on the tablet by the till before they have finished the sentence. Staff start making it.
Front Counter
The order is on the till before the caller hangs up.
At every outlet the phone rings in the busiest ten minutes of lunch. Front Counter takes the call and puts the order on a tablet by the till.
What the feature does
A counter screen fed by the phone agent
The agent takes the call. Front Counter is the screen the staff watch: bookings and orders appearing as they are spoken, against the business's own menu.
The business's own menu
The menu lives in the platform with the business's prices on it. The agent only offers what is on the menu, quotes the price the business set, and reads the total back.
86 an item
The salad is gone by half twelve. One tap marks it out, and the agent stops offering it on the very next call, suggesting something else instead.
Totals, numbers and receipts
Every order gets a total and a number, and the receipt prints at the counter, so the caller collecting at 12.40 gives a number and the order is handed over.
Bookings too
A table for four at seven lands on the same screen, and in the diary the business keeps, so the floor and the phone agree on who is coming.
Daily close-out
At the end of the day the orders taken by phone are closed out on the tablet, so the day's phone trade reconciles against the till like any other.
How it goes at the counter
Lunch rush at outlet twelve, phone ringing
- The phone ringsNobody stops making coffee. The agent answers on the first ring in the outlet's own greeting and asks for the order.
- The order buildsTwo flat whites, a chicken wrap. The salad is out, so the agent offers the soup. Each line appears on the tablet.
- The total is read backThe agent gives the total and the order number, and the caller gets a confirmation.
- The receipt printsThe kitchen has it, the counter has the number, and the order is handed over at 12.40. At close, phone orders reconcile.
What the business gets
Phone orders that behave like counter orders
Every phone order on the record with its lines, total, number and time, beside the call that produced it. The usual text and email summary within seconds. The kitchen sees the order at the same moment the counter does.
Front Counter rides on the same phone agent as everything else, so each outlet's hours, location and the questions the menu does not answer come from the same knowledge base, and a caller who wants a person is put through on the business's rules.
The natural buyers are franchise head offices and multi-site hospitality groups: quick-service chains, bakery and coffee franchises, and anyone whose outlets take orders and bookings by phone while their hands are busy. It needs a tablet by the till and a receipt printer; the platform supplies the screen, not the hardware.
Front Counter is available now. The agent never takes card numbers over the phone; taking payment on the call is a separate early access piece where the customer types the card on the payment gateway's own page from a link the agent texts.
Sold through partners
For the franchise groups on your books
Front Counter is a sellable add-on to the phone agent, and the obvious one for a client who runs a counter. You set the price; Talkgate runs the platform. Load the menu with head office once, put a tablet by each till, and sell the agent and screen as one thing across the group; see the partner programme.
Works with
The agent, the diary and the counter
Front Counter is a platform screen; it does not need an outside system to connect to. Bookings also land in the diary the business keeps. See all integrations.
Next step
Ring in an order and watch it land on the tablet
A partner briefing shows the menu being loaded, an order arriving on the screen as it is spoken, and the close-out. See also bookings.