A tech-savvy fish and chip shop boss has developed what he believes is the industry’s first AI phone order taking system that handles customer orders, helping reduce staff workload and minimise mistakes.
Twenty-eight-year-old Brad-Lee Navrus, who manages The Nippy Chippy in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, spent six months developing and fine-tuning the system – named ServeMate – to handle phone orders from start to finish.
An AI assistant, affectionately called Sophie, has been trained to answer a wide range of common customer questions, confirm order details, double-check delivery addresses, and even run a price check before finalising an order.
Brad, who studied computing and business at college before joining his father’s shop in 2015, created the system to eliminate the inefficiencies of handling phone orders manually. With no ready-made solution available in the UK, he took matters into his own hands.
He explains: “We’ve got an island range, so I like to spend a few days out front instead of just frying. I was on the till for a few days, and the process just seemed slow. I’d be taking orders, getting sauces ready, handling online orders and in the middle of all that, the phone would ring. I’d spend about four to six minutes at a time on the phone, and that’s all I could focus on. You can’t multitask while on a call, you’ll miss something. About six months ago, I thought, ‘Isn’t there a better way to do this?’ Yes, we encourage online orders, but some customers still want that personal phone interaction. They want to talk to someone.”
According to Brad, the AI assistant now handles that demand better than a human. “It’s so easy to make a mistake on the phone, to miss an item or get a house number wrong. I’ve done it myself. Someone asked me if this was going to replace humans, and I said no, you’ll always need staff. But this is a huge helping hand. Now, they can just focus on serving walk-ins and managing online orders.”
Sophie isn’t just a voice on the other end of the line, she also saves time by responding to frequent questions.
“We get 15 to 20 calls a day asking if we’re open, what’s in our patties, or what oil we use,” explains Brad. “That adds up to 10–15 minutes of my day. Now, I only need to answer the phone when someone specifically asks to speak to a member of staff.”
The system has also helped reduce missed orders, which Brad estimates used to average two or three per day when staff couldn’t get to the phone in time.
After a month of live testing in The Nippy Chippy, Brad says customers have embraced the change. “They’ve loved it. I was working front of house on Saturday night, and one customer said, ‘Oh, that Sophie, she was brilliant.’”
Brad is now preparing to roll the system out to other shops, with setup costs starting at around £150 and a monthly fee of £40.
“It’s something shops really want and need,” says Brad. “I’ve always looked for ways to improve the industry, and this is definitely one of them. I’ve been genuinely surprised by how far AI has come – and how good it is now.”
For more information, a demo of ServeMate or to sign up, contact Brad on 07534255605 or on Facebook at ServeMate.
