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o-shows have reared their ugly head again in the hospitality industry and are costing restaurants and other bookable
venues collectively billions of pounds each year. Customers both failing to both turn up and cancelling their bookings has sadly been on the increase in the past year and puts yet another challenge on the plate of businesses battling a tough economic backdrop. Thank- fully, there is help at hand in the form of book- ing tools that can reduce the levels of no-shows. Colin Winning, chief executive of ResDiary,
says: “Booking systems can have a vital impact in helping to reduce no-shows. Our ‘Beyond the Booking Report’ found that the average venue had already lost £1,325 due to no-shows in January and February of this year alone – at that rate they’d be losing almost £8,000 per year on average.” He suggests that the right booking system
can help automate the process of sending booking reminders, enable timely cancella- tions and even take deposit payments when needed. Again, this doesn’t just help venues keep their bookings and cover their costs if a customer doesn’t show, but it also saves staff from needing to manage the headache of no-shows manually. In reality, this functionality is only one small
part of what can be delivered from booking solutions. As Winning points out, the cap- turing of as many table bookings as possible is only “one side of the coin”. He adds: “It’s important that a booking system does more. As we’re seeing, more venues are using ResDi- ary for its other features, such as promotions and vouchers, and its integrations with cus- tomer relationship management and market- ing systems too.” There is real value to be found in bring-
ing all of these various components together. Firstly, creating a seamless workflow through the creation and promotion of campaigns, right through to when customers book, can help to improve operations and ultimately the customer experience. In addition, the data from these systems can enable venues to learn much more about their customer base and create more targeted campaigns in the future that are tailored to their preferences. For this to all come to fruition it very
much relies on the booking tools being fully integrated with the various other software solutions in an organisation. The most fun- damental of these remains the electronic point of sale (EPoS) system. Phil Neale, managing director of hospi-
tality EPoS specialists Tabology, says: “Most customers now prefer to book online, which provides a great opportunity for restaurants to streamline the booking process. However,
www.thecaterer.com
“Operating in the hospitality industry without a booking engine poses
significant challenges” Robin Mittal, Cendyn
most online booking systems aren’t well inte- grated with venues’ EPoS and other systems, which limits the opportunities.” With an integrated approach deposits are automatically handled on the EPoS when the guests arrive, and accounted for correctly on integrated accounting systems. Sales data from the EPoS is tracked against each book- ing, enabling detailed reporting on spend as well as guests’ purchasing habits. This data can then be used by Tabology’s built-in loyalty module to segment contacts and send target- ing marketing campaigns.
SMALL AND PERFECTLY FORMED The Stonehouse Brewery in Oswestry, Shrop- shire, which serves an extensive menu includ- ing burgers, pizzas and cookhouse platters from the barbecue at its bar and restaurant, is benefiting from just such a system. With the Tabology bookings widget embedded on its
website bookings come directly into the EPoS and back office, which enables great control over the incoming bookings. Shane Parr, co-founder of Stonehouse Brewery, says: “We decided against having live booking. We review and confirm bookings as they come in. We prefer to keep that control, as the kitchen is relatively small compared to the overall size of the establishment. It would be very easy for us to be overbooked, especially as we have a lot of walk-ins. We review each book- ing request and confirm back, usually within a few hours.” The system is also used to automatically
send email reminders to customers as their booking approaches. “During the week we tend to be very busy in the brewery, and we’ve noticed that we’re now having to deal with far fewer phone calls from customers mak- ing bookings, which can be time consum- ing, because they’re booking via the website instead,” explains Parr. According to research from Zonal, consum-
ers are keen for operators to engage with them during the booking process, with 51% want- ing to be able to easily cancel bookings or get reminders without having to contact someone (60%). Having a system that sends out auto- mated SMS and email booking reminders to customers not only adds a personal touch that guests appreciate but also provides an opportunity to upsell and drive further reve- nue opportunities. In addition, these tools can also help save staff time by reducing the need for them to call customers to reconfirm book- ings or even facilitating guests pre-ordering
Technology Prospectus 2024 | 7
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