The Case of the Faltering Fax

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Copyright © 2008 Rudy Vener


Most of my clients get their online orders on their fax machine.

It is the simplest and most affordable option. You can get a good quality machine for about $100 and it works over a plain old telephone line.

But like any technology, a fax machine can develop problems, and sometimes it takes a little detective work to figure them out.

Giulio's Pizza of North Haven began accepting online orders through Pizza Galaxy in March 2007. For over a year everything worked flawlessly. Giulio's kept their fax machine in good condition, and Customers placed online orders which printed on the fax machine without problem.

Then suddenly, in late July,, their fax stopped working.

While fax failures happen occasionally, they are normally pretty easy to diagnose and fix. Someone has unplugged the fax machine or left it turned off. In one case, an employee kicked the telephone hand-set out of the cradle resulting in a constant busy signal.

When this happens, we call the restaurant, give them the order by voice and then ask them to check that the fax is turned on, plugged in and operating properly.

Ninety nine times out of a hundred that's all it takes. But Giulio's was definitely a one in a hundred case.

At their end everything looked fine. The fax was running, it would answer the phone and would go into receive mode. But invariably, the fax did not go through. Very odd.

Luckily, Giulio's is one of our closest clients and Gina and I decided to pay them a house call. Even more luckily, Giulio's has WIFI so we were able to bring along a notebook PC that let us place test orders at the shop.

One of the things we tell restaurant owners is to set their fax machines to answer on the first or second ring.

Fax machines often default to answer on the sixth ring. That is much too long a delay. The automatic fax system which transmits the order can decide there is no answer and gives up. I knew this wasn't the case because we had already tested Giulio's fax and found that it answered on the second or third ring.

At the restaurant we checked out the fax. It was connected properly, and had plenty of ink and paper. It appeared to b in the correct mode for receiving faxes and nothing seemed obviously wrong.

We used the notebook PC to place a test order.

That's when the fun began.

As we watched, the fax machine answered the call, went into Receive mode and began to receive the fax. So far so good. Then the machine suddenly stopped. The fax machine ended the call and went back to sleep. Uh oh.

Pizza galaxy's online ordering system automatically retries the fax in case of failure, so for the next few minutes we watched the above cycle repeat itself over and over again with nothing being printed.

At this point I decided it was time to power cycle the fax machine. That's when we discovered there was no on/off switch. There was also no way to reach the outlet to unplug the machine.

Sal, the owner crawled under the counter to reach the well hidden outlet. I don't think he trusted us not to unplug his dough mixer, but I could be wrong.

In any case, turning the machine off and on again did the trick. The next fax retry came through. Giulio's Pizza's fax machine is working again, online ordering has been re-activated and all is well.

Plus we now have a new procedure to use when troubleshooting faulty faxes.

Here are a few tips for ensuring your online ordering won't be the victim of fax failure:

1. Keep it clean.

The kitchen is a tough environment for fax machines. I know of at least one fax machine that died because it got contaminated with flour. Make sure your fax is safe from excessive heat, spills and airborne contaminants such as flour and hot oil spatter.

2. Set the fax to answer quickly

Some fax machines have default answer delays of six rings or more. This delay is supposed to let the owner pick up and answer by voice before the fax machine answers. This is not a good strategy in the restaurant since it adds needless delay. In some cases, the order sending system may quit and retry if the fax machine does not answer quickly enough.

3. Use a dedicated fax phone line.

Don't mix voice answering and fax machine calls. If a human voice answers it means the fax will have to be retried and just wastes everyone's time.

4. Make sure your fax machine is on.

You think I'm kidding? I've lost count of the number of new clients who forget to turn on their fax machines or forgot to train their staff to do so.

5. Keep spare ink and paper on hand.

One client had to de-activate online ordering because his fax machine ran out of toner and he didn't have any spares. Naturally this happened during the evening rush.

6. Location, Location, Location

Put your fax where staff members can hear it, see it and easily access the order the moment it arrives. These orders are just as important as the ones that come in by phone. Someone is going to want their food in a half hour whether they stop by for it or ask you to deliver. We were forced to shut down one online ordering system when the owner revealed that the fax machine was in a back office. And no, I am NOT going to name names.

7. Quality Counts

Don't be tempted to get a cheap machine from Vendor X. Go with a solid, high quality fax machine that will stand up to the rigors of daily use in your restaurant.



When your restaurant gets significant orders by fax it pays to keep your machine in good working order. A small amount of planning and preparation can mean years of reliable service from your online ordering system as it sends order after order to your fax.


About the Author:
Rudy Vener is the president and founder of Pizza Galaxy. He has helped restaurants provide online ordering nationwide since 2004. Get his free report: The Top 7 Ways for Restaurants to get Customers Online. Go to http://www.pizzagalaxy.com/top7ways.html now to get your free copy.