The festive season is here, and along with it comes the huge trail of diners lined outside your restaurant eagerly waiting to party over dinner and drinks. As the peak hours increase, sales at your restaurant increase, and with that increase, the chances of chaos, frustration, and conflict. No diner likes to wait, and eventually heads over to another restaurant.
Your job here is to carefully strike a balance between keeping your diners engaged and happy while ensuring that you serve as many tables as possible and rake in as much revenue as you can from this time. We have some great ideas on how you can make that happen.
1. Manage Tables Digitally to increase Sales at your Restaurant
The maximum footfall restaurants encounter is usually between 8 pm to 11 pm. If you could save 10 minutes on an average for seating the diner, placing the order, and then clearing the bill. This can help you save up to 30 minutes a table, allowing you to add one more table to your service during peak hours. This can give you a 30% increase in revenues during peak time alone and an increase of 10% to the overall business.
That can be quite a significant part of your growth strategy in the long term. But it’s easier said than done. With the help of the inresto Guest & reserve app, you can do that & here’s how-
- Reservations & walk-ins can all be managed from one single app.
- The waiter can assign tables in real-time directly from his tab by getting an overview of the table status digitally. He does not have to physically go at every table to check the availability status to assign them to diners. This saves a lot of time.
- Any special requests made by the diners like a table by the pool are efficiently managed.
- The Guest & Reserve app also records diner data like their name, age, phone number, and their frequency of visits, so that the next time they visit the restaurant, you know which ones are the priority customers, which ones prefer which table, etc. and tables are assigned accordingly for maximum customer satisfaction.
2. Digitize the order taking process
Nothing is more putting off for hungry diners than waiting for waiters to come to their tables to take the orders. Working out a strategy that helps your staff operate hassle-free with effective management of tables at the restaurant can save a lot of time. inresto DineIn helps the diners place their orders digitally by scanning a QR code placed on their respective tables. This saves a lot of time for both the diner and the waiter. As soon as the diners place an order from their phone, the chefs are notified in the kitchen. The turnaround time reduces, and you can serve more diners in a day.
3. Keep your menu interesting, compact, and online.
The longer your menu, the longer is the time taken by your diners to make a decision. Give them options in the form of specials but keep the menu short, helping them land on a decision quickly. You could even consider digital menus, which provide the customers with the ease of ordering their meal on their smartphones. Decisions can be made quickly with the help of images and reviews by other diners. Moreover, digital menus give customers the liberty to decide their order while still waiting for their table. Then, they can order as soon as they are seated, without even having to wait for the staff. This can speed up your service significantly.
We admit these strategies are a lot to handle. They take time, attention to detail, and scrutiny of a wide range of factors.
However, there is an easier way. The inresto product suite – especially inresto Guest & Reserve and inresto DineIn – help you manage rush hour queues, handle walk-ins & table reservations, analyze waitlist data, speed up the ordering process, and much more, to effectively increase the overall productivity of the restaurant.
