You sent five, maybe ten quote requests this week for your corporate event or private party. You waited until Monday. Nothing. You followed up on Wednesday. Still nothing. Friday arrives, and your inbox is as empty as a politician's campaign promise at the end of their term.
You start to panic. Is your budget too low? Have Swiss Food Trucks become too arrogant to reply?
The truth is more brutal (and simpler): You’ve been "filtered." Not by a complex algorithm, but by the overheated brain of an entrepreneur who made a decision in exactly 3 seconds: "Trash."
And the worst part? You don't even know why.
The Classic Mistake: The "Message in a Bottle" Strategy
What does the average organizer do (your direct competitor for that amazing Food Truck)? They open their email client, put 15 Food Trucks in BCC, and write something like this:
"Hi, we're organizing a party on June 15th. We'd like to know how much it costs to have your truck. Please send us a quote."
This is what I call the False Solution. You think you're doing well. You think it's polite. You think you're "opening the discussion." In reality, you have just committed commercial suicide.
[Meme: Image of "Hide the Pain Harold" staring at his computer screen with a forced smile]
Why? Because you are treating booking a Food Truck like buying a ream of paper on Amazon. You think the provider is sitting behind a desk, latte in hand, impatiently waiting to answer you.
The Mechanism: Why Your "Polite" Request Is a Logistics Nightmare
Here is the biological and economic reality of a high-performing Food Truck manager. They are not behind a desk. They are behind the wheel, marinating 40kg of meat, or fixing a moody generator with duct tape and a prayer.
When they receive your vague email ("How much does it cost?"), their brain instantly translates it into administrative pain. To answer you, they have to send an email back to ask:
- How many people?
- What are the service hours?
- Where exactly is it (downtown or on a mountain peak with no electricity)?
- What is the budget per head?
This is called transactional friction. If your request requires 4 back-and-forth emails just to know if it's feasible, you are not profitable. Not in money, but in time.
The best Food Trucks receive dozens of requests a week. They apply a ruthless economic law: The Law of Least Administrative Effort.
- If the message is vague = Trash.
- If the message is precise = Priority.
It's that simple. Your vague email doesn't signal an opportunity; it signals a waste of time.
[Meme: The guy sweating profusely having to choose between "Reply to Michel" and "Prep the mise en place"]
The Real Solution: The "Golden Brief" (Or How to Cut in Front of the Line)
If you want the best burger or the best tacos in Switzerland to show up at your event, you need to flip the dynamic. Don't ask if they can do it. Give them every reason to say YES immediately.
The real solution is to remove the friction. You must provide a "Golden Brief" containing the 4 sacred pillars from the very first contact:
- Date & Exact Time (Not "in June", but "June 15th, service from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM").
- Volume (Not "a small team", but "75 confirmed eaters").
- Infrastructure (Do you have a T13, T23, or CEE 16A plug? If that sounds like Chinese to you, just say "standard household outlet").
- Budget (Give a range. "Between 20 and 25 CHF per person").
When a Food Trucker receives this, they don't see a chore. They see a contract ready to sign. It's the difference between a client who is "window shopping" and a partner who is ready to work.
Conclusion: Stop Playing Guessing Games
You don't have time to learn the electrical specifics of every truck in Switzerland. And Food Trucks don't have time to play detective with you.
This is exactly why I built the architecture of Mobile-food.ch. Our platform doesn't let you send "messages in a bottle." It forces you (gently) to structure your request with the exact data our partners need to validate your event in the blink of an eye.
The result? Requests that go through our system don't end up in the trash. They end up in the calendar.
Don't leave your event in the "Deal with later" pile (which means never).