Corporate Catering Crisis Averted During Massive Snow Storms

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., March 17 /PRNewswire/ --

News Highlights:

• Large corporate call center feeds hundreds, stays open during paralyzing storms
• Web-based technology simplifies complicated corporate catering transactions
• Vmeals sales rep responds to emergency by combining personal service with technology

When the first snowflakes started to fall in mid December outside the Richmond, Virginia offices of a large travel insurance customer service center, the HR director knew she was in trouble. The forecast was for up to two feet of snow; a potentially paralyzing event for Richmond businesses.

Yet the HR director knew the call center had to continue around the clock, snow or no snow, and the hundreds of staff had to be fed breakfast, lunch and dinner for as long as they were stuck there.

Because a similar crisis situation had happened the year before, following a major summer thunderstorm and power outage, the HR director had a contingency plan in place. She tapped into the Vmeals (www.vmeals.com) online network of restaurants and caterers in the Richmond area and soon hundreds of emergency meals were on their way through the snow.

Vmeals to the Rescue

Vmeals, a leading online meal ordering service, has a strong presence in Richmond. The Vmeals sales rep for the Richmond area, Mary Pat Koslowski, describes the situation as it unfolded:

"In December the city was hit with a big storm and our customer needed meals delivered for breakfast, lunch and dinner for three days. One of our restaurants cancelled at the last minute because the snow was so bad, but Chef Todd from Cafe Wired, another restaurant in the Vmeals network, stepped in and provided the meals. I worked closely with our customer contact, who communicated meal details, employee counts, and special delivery instructions for her operations teams at the two locations that she manages. Together we coordinated nearly 900 meals."

"Then, it happened two more times," Koslowski said.

According to Koslowski, "It happened again the last weekend of January. This time we coordinated almost 1,100 meals over three days. Amazingly, just a week later in early February it snowed yet again, and our customer ordered 1,400 meals for teams over five different days." In all, according to Koslowski, the Vmeals customer ordered more than 3,300 delivered meals to keep operations humming during the massive winter storms.  "Our customer was satisfied and our restaurant partners demonstrated their commitment to honoring orders, no matter what the circumstances," she said.

"Even though our technology automates and simplifies the corporate catering transaction for our customers, we still have to step in from time to time and solve challenging situations with good old fashioned personal service," said W. Carter Hoerr, chief executive of Vmeals. "Mary Pat's story of the Richmond customer needing hundreds of meals during a snow storm is a perfect example. We call that a 'Vmeals Hero' story."

About Vmeals:

Vmeals (www.vmeals.com) is an online service for business people who order group meals for meetings and events. The Vmeals website features menus and delivered meals from more than 1,400 local restaurants and caterers in more than 30 metropolitan East Coast and Midwest markets. Vmeals customers include Fortune 1000 offices, professional services firms, pharmaceutical sales reps, colleges, non-profits, and medical centers.

Vmeals customers have an easy-to-use catering service that allows them to customize menus and business meal services. Vmeals customers can place a single group order or allow meeting participants to order from a selected menu.

The web-based Vmeals system handles all aspects of the delivered meal transaction – marketing, customer acquisition, menu presentation, pricing, order processing, payment, and customer service – except the actual preparation and presentation of the food.

SOURCE Vmeals