How Many Reservations Tonight, Hal?
Posted by estiator at 10 May, at 05 : 27 AM Print
MANAGING FOR SUCCESS By CONSTANTINE N. KOLITSAS Business Coach
To accept reservations or not to accept reservations: That’s not always a question. In the Information Age, that question takes on many nuances. But first let’s get to the existential question at hand…
For certain restaurant types, it makes sense to not accept reservations—it’s just part of the culture of those eateries. And we’re not just talking about diners, dives, and drive-ins. In the casual-dining segment, most of the big-name chains don’t accept reservations (think Applebee’s, Chili’s and the like). Even smaller next-tier-up casual-dining restaurants (often belonging to multi-unit groups) rarely accept them. In fact, it’s largely in the upscale-dining and fine-dining sectors where reservations are the rule rather than the exception. And with the rising popularity of online reservation apps like OpenTable and Resy, the operator’s hand is pretty much forced: either accept reservations (and register with one of the apps) or lose out on business. In these instances, a growing number of restaurant-goers have adopted the habit of going to the app before they even decide at which restaurant they would like to dine.
Those of us who use reservation software know the blessings and the curses that they bring. As in the futuristic film 2001: A Space Odyssey, what starts as a dream is often a nightmare. On the positive side, the software makes seat assignments and table management much easier. You can assign tables to each reservation and move those assignments around with the flick of a finger; you can message to your guest’s cellphone to confirm a reservation; you can flag what stage of service a table is at so you can estimate when that table will be available for the next party; and you can view your shift by table, timeline, or as a list, giving you different angles of how to move reservations around mid-shift and optimize your capacity on the fly.
On the marketing side, many customers that may never discover you often find your restaurant through the public-facing app that corresponds to the reservation software, which allows them to search by (among others, but most importantly) geography, cuisine type, guest rating, or price range. The added visibility that the apps bring is helpful, particularly to new or hard-to-discover restaurants. But these benefits don’t come cheap. Most apps charge you a flat monthly fee for the reservation software in addition to charging you for every guest who dines with you that comes through their portal. On that last part, it’s important to adjust the number of people in the party if less show up, or you’ll pay for the full party. Ditto little kids. People making reservations often include the infants, which don’t bring any dollars to the check. If a table of eight walks in and three of that number are infants, then you’re paying for eight reservations. I recommend adjusting the party to five once they arrive so that you don’t pay for the babies.
Those of us who use reservation software know the blessings and the curses that they bring. As in the futuristic film 2001: A Space Odyssey, what starts as a dream is often a nightmare.
And now for the curses… Because the guests are using a faceless app and not speaking to a host or a live person to make the reservations, there is an air of anonymity when making reservations, even though the name appears on your reservation list. This anonymity, coupled with the ease of use (not having to go through the time-consuming process of calling and speaking with a fellow human being), makes last-minute cancellations (or, worse, no-shows) much more of a problem than with traditional phone reservations. It’s not unusual to look at a tablet with your evening’s reservations and see them fall off the list before your very eyes. This is frustrating when you’ve spent a good amount of time planning out the dining room setup, moving tables around, etc., so that you can accommodate those sixtops and eight-tops, only to see them canceled at the last minute. Even more frustrating—and costly—when you are fully booked for the shift and have been turning away calls for the last two hours. And it’s not unusual for cancellations to come just minutes before the anticipated arrival. And it’s not unusual for cancellations to go unnoticed for long stretches of time. There’s no warning when it happens—the reservation just moves silently from the active list to the canceled list. And in many markets, customers who use the app will very frequently make reservations at two or three restaurants and cancel at the last minute when they make the decision of which restaurant they would prefer to eat.
Unfortunately, there’s no way (at least in the software I use) to flag those customers and keep them from making reservations in the future. Even better, it would be great if the app would charge a cancellation fee that would go to the restaurant. Hal, are you listening? Maybe you can help with that!
Constantine Kolitsas is the president of CNK Consulting, a restaurant consultant and coaching business. He can be reached at 203-947-6234 or at ckolitsas@gmail.com.
