Best Practices
Survival Tip #10: Reservation & Waitlist Apps Becoming a MUST HAVE for Dine-In Restaurants
As restaurant dining rooms begin to reopen with limited seating and social distancing concerns, controlling the flow of arriving guests becomes a TOP PRIORITY. Guests queuing up in front of your restaurant will NOT give your restaurant the perception of health and safety.
One way to manage the flow is to take reservations and/or have your guests place themselves on a waitlist. A simple, inexpensive waitlist app gives guests a time estimate and notifications on when their table will be available.
There are many reservation and waitlist apps available that provide cost-effective solutions for independent restaurants.
Here are some reservation and waitlist apps that were mentioned during last week's "Adapting Your Concept to the New Guest Experience" webinar.
- OpenTable (reservations and waitlist) (very good but relatively high cost)
- Tock (reservations)
- YelpReservations (reservations and waitlist)
- YelpNoWait (waitlist)
- WaitListMe (reservations and waitlist)
- HostMe (reservations and waitlist)
- RestaurantConnect (reservations and waitlist)
- DineTime (reservations and waitlist)
- TablesReady (waitlist)
- WaitWhile
In addition to reservation and waitlist apps, other aspects of the NEW dine-in guest experience was discussed. Topics included safety and sanitation, supply chain changes, health checks for staff and guests, and insights on managing each stage of the new dine-in guest journey.
Please click the link below to view the webinar recording and view the comments from attendees.
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Article
Plugged In: Staff Communication and Scheduling Tools
The upsides and downside of popular mobile device scheduling and communication apps, including how they save their concepts time and money. We also discuss the features operators would like to see in these apps going forward.
