Spotlight on: booking tools
The right booking tools can give you more granular data about your customers, greater flexibility and improved integrations across the business. Here's what technology operators are using
During tough economic times the desire to maximise revenues becomes ever more important for hospitality businesses, whether that's turning restaurant tables more frequently or driving greater hotel room occupancy – and the vital customer touch-point is the booking element. For many businesses this has involved a rather ad hoc process with bookings coming in from all directions, including the phone and online. As the latter has become increasingly important – fuelled by Covid-19 – it has prompted the widespread adoption of booking engine widgets on websites to accept online bookings.
However, since the volume of online bookings has increased, it has all too often exposed a lack of integration between the booking piece and the rest of a company's operations and technology solutions. This is leading to a widespread move by restaurants and hotels to better integrate their booking tools within their wider infrastructures. This not only improves efficiency across a business but also provides a much richer customer experience, which in turn contributes to greater spending and helps with the industry's underlying objective of maximising revenues.
Here we take a look at operators who have modernised their booking systems.
Malhotra Group sets future prices with Zonal
As family-owned Malhotra Group has continued to grow its accommodation portfolio it has sought to gain greater control over its operations, room rates and bookings, and for this it has sought to better leverage the broad capabilities of its property management system (PMS).
Having previously relied on taking bookings via email or phone, its Zonal PMS solution with integrated booking tools has enabled the business to reduce booking mistakes and overbookings as well as to better determine and update room rates based on demand.
The system is also able to integrate with other technologies in the business, including the group's digital loyalty scheme and electronic point of sale. Malhotra is also continuously gathering data about its guests, which provides a 360-degree view of how the portfolio is performing and where efficiencies can be made – both for individual sites and collectively.
With a particular desire to drive bookings and increase revenue, the team are now able to track customer spend across all departments of the hotels, while also having greater control over room pricing.
Marcella Swindell, group hotels operation manager at Malhotra Group, says: "The data we acquire from our technology is essential. We use this to help set our rates for the week, the month and the following year. Through Zonal's reporting tools, we can easily see how the business is performing and look to change our rates based on whether we need to drive occupancy, room rates or both."
Riddling Rack never misses a booking with Tabology
Riddling Rack is a popular local café and bar in Newton-Le-Willows, near Warrington, that offers a choice of wines from around the world, cocktails, beer and specialty coffees, as well as breakfast and lunch options comprising sandwiches, small plates and sharing platters.
Since Riddling Rack first implemented Tabology's Bar electronic point of sale system it has seen the range of functionality it uses grow alongside the business.
It is now using the integrated booking system to manage customer bookings across various touch-points.
Alex Myhill, director of Riddling Rack, says: "Before using Tabology we had too many ways to book, which was a recipe for disaster. We had a paper bookings diary, we recorded information such as special requests on the Google Drive, and we took bookings via our website and social media. It was very easy for information not to get transferred from one to another, and although we never dropped the ball, we came close a few times."
Now, using Tabology's booking widget embedded in the Riddling Rack website, all bookings are automatically generated, while telephone bookings are keyed straight into the system. Meanwhile, online bookings are automatically flagged up both in the back office and on the front of house staff tablets.
"Tabology has added the alert system, which is very useful, and means we don't miss a booking even at the busiest times. We then allocate the tables as bookings come in and accommodate any special requests," says Myhill, adding that with bookings overlaid on the table plan the team can immediately see if there is already a booking for a large party or a private function in the upstairs area.
Mildreds manages its forecasts with Favouritetable
Pioneering vegan restaurant Mildreds has transformed its efficiency and revenue generation through enhanced table bookings and improved the diner experience by employing software supplier Favouritetable.
Like many hospitality businesses, Covid-19 represented a real challenge for Mildreds and was the driver behind it employing an online booking and reservations system to ensure compliance with pandemic regulations. Since then the longer-term benefits of the technology have become apparent. Lukas Strikas, operations director at Mildreds, says: "What we like most about Favouritetable is that, particularly ahead of busy times like Christmas, guests can pre-order and choose their courses in advance. This saves a lot of manual work for our managers and staff because the system allows customers to input details without any other human interaction. If we want to highlight a special menu, for example, we have a supper club every two weeks at our Dalston restaurant, the system allows you to choose this or book from our standard à la carte menu."
This simple element has freed up a lot of employee hours and Mildreds can now also run reports to track progress against targets and forecast the week ahead as well as managing orders based against reservations taken.
This is becoming increasingly important as more customers opt to choose their meals and budget from home, sometimes weeks in advance. Mildreds knows 70% of diners now prefer booking online, and this aligns with customers who want a fully digital experience – it regards online menu selection as a logical enhancement of this trend.
This also enables better forward-planning for staffing and inventories, reducing any ambiguity and errors associated with traditional dish choosing. This is especially true for large groups or party bookings, which are traditionally prone to diner selection errors.
The system also includes deposit and payment functionality to allow restaurant owners to counter no-shows by setting algorithms that can implement a range of triggers. Restaurants could set a rule stating that bookings over a particular group size or value require an online deposit, with payment being made either immediately or by a set date.
Fuller's combines hotel and restaurant bookings with Rezcontrol by Avondata
As Fuller's has grown its inns and hotels business, it has required a streamlined booking solution that can work across the restaurants and rooms. Maximising revenue efficiencies across the entire organisation has also become a priority.
The operator chose Rezcontrol by Avondata, which now provides a PMS for all Fuller's 45 hotels and inns that incorporates its booking requirements and management reporting.
Natasha Wildash, group accommodation strategy manager at Fuller, Smith & Turner, says: "It came down to choosing the system that was right for our front of house teams, taking into account the sizes of our hotels. We needed a system that was user-friendly and had the back-end capability to cope with our complex rate management and reporting needs."
For Fuller's, the performance of table booking software is inevitably intertwined with the overall PMS functionality, and specifically the interplay between hotel and restaurant. It needed a system that could not only handle both, but also integrate them seamlessly, with the capacity to maximise bookings, upsells and revenue.
Among other things the solution contributes to the profitability of the bedrooms as all rates are managed in one place and it's easy to open and close or set restrictions on inventory when required. The rate bands have enabled the team to maximise every opportunity.
When it comes to restaurant bookings, Rezcontrol is integrated with Access Collins. Wildash says: "It not only improves the guest experience but has enabled our teams to push incremental sales without having to learn and operate two systems."
The overall system has boosted efficiency by enabling the team to spend more time with guests rather than on administration and it helps with easily being able to move staff around to different hotels and give them access to the same system.
The future could include enhancements to the booking journey, so customers could easily book not only rooms and tables, but also spa and wellness treatments and any other activities run by the hotel, all in one process.
Suppliers
Rezcontrol by Avondatarezcontrol.com
Favouritetablerestaurant.favouritetable.com
Tabologywww.tabology.com
Zonalwww.zonal.co.uk
