Promoted article: ResDiary – giving you the tools to weather a no-show storm
For most of you, hospitality isn't a job, it's a vocation. Your venues are your pride and joy, and you do everything possible to make sure they're a success. Which is why no-shows are so frustrating. You're working hard all day every day, but a few people not turning up can mean the difference between making a profit and losing money. Added to increasing rates, food costs, and rent prices, this industry issue is fast resulting in an industry storm. What you need are the tools to weather that storm and protect your profits.
Forecast a full house: Payments
One way to help guarantee bookings, and successfully plan ahead, is by taking payments in advance. Whether it's full payment, selling tickets, or taking a part deposit, these techniques are proven to curb no-shows. With ResDiary, it can be done automatically through your system. Like Pearse Holohan from Holohan's Pantry, you're completely in command: "We are able to properly deal with and manage deposits, giving us an overall level of control and professionalism with our bookings." You can set up rules and amounts for specific days, times, or party sizes, and payment is taken automatically at the point of booking. And it's all done in a simple PCI-compliant manner through our payment partner, Stripe.
No matter how easy the process, many people still feel wary of taking payments upfront. While payments are becoming more commonplace in the industry, they're sometimes just not appropriate for certain customer-bases. Which is why ResDiary introduced a guarantee system called tokenization, a few years ago. You can store customer card details through Stripe and charge the card for a customisable amount if the customer doesn't turn up, or makes a late cancellation. (The terms are up to you.) No up-front payment for guests, and an easy way to encourage people to honour their reservation. What's more, it's free unless you charge the card, and just a small percentage if you do.
No more rain-checks: Reminder messages
Regardless of the measures you take against no-shows, sometimes people just forget about their plans. We've all booked a restaurant weeks ahead, and it's slipped our mind until a few days prior. For this reason, ResDiary has customisable reminders that can be sent to your guests. Use the integrated SMS or emails to send automatic messages within your chosen time-frame. Lunya restaurants' Peter Kinsella believes messaging customers is the way forward in protecting his revenue: "We send everyone an SMS reminder and make it easy for them to amend or cancel their booking. The small amount you pay per message is much preferable to what you lose on a no-show."
If you've used all the tools available to deter no-shows, you'll want to track your success, and catch repeat offenders. With ResDiary, customers can be tagged, marked as no-shows, made VIPs, and have notes added to their profiles. Then, all this can be reported on through the in-depth reporting suite. It means if someone has failed to make their booking multiple times, you've got it noted. If they're serial last-minute cancellers, it's all in your ResDiary system. You can even block them from making online bookings if they continually no-show or cancel later than your terms and conditions allow. Not tonight guys!
Don't get caught in the storm. Join ResDiary today and pay no set-up fees when you sign up to our Express, Pro, or Ultimate accounts before midnight on 30/04/2018. Simply quote "thestorm" in the Voucher Code box when signing up.
