The profit margin tends to be tight
The restaurant industry and hospitality industry have notoriously tight profit margins, which means that all it takes is a few no-shows in an evening to turn your profit into a loss. And according to the industry average, around 20% of reservations tend to not turn up.
There are a variety of reasons why people book a table at a restaurant and just don’t show up: for example the inability to quickly find the option to cancel comes in at around 45% while 18% of no-shows are down to the fact that people simply forget that they made the booking. Then there’s the 9% who book multiple tables at different restaurants and make their final decision at the last minute (and often don’t bother to let the other restaurants know).
ResDiary estimated that in the UK alone, no-shows cost the industry around 16 billion pounds a year, with the average cost of a no-show to a restaurant coming in at a whopping 89 pounds.
There are options
While there are various methods for reducing your no-show rate for restaurant reservations, like:
- sending SMS reminders
- sending an email reminder
- having a cancellation policy printed on your website
- taking credit card details and charging for last-minute cancellations
- having a no-show charge
- even selling prepaid tickets
…and more, still there are downsides to most of these methods.
While some customers have an awareness of the no-show phenomenon, most don’t really have it on their radar, and there are enough people out there who routinely book at more than one restaurant just to keep their options open.
The downside of charging for not turning up
You want to keep your customer happy, and for the majority of diners, having the threat of a credit card charge in case they can’t make it to their planned dining experience just leaves a bad taste in their mouth (sorry, couldn’t help the pun :)).
And while a credit card charge for their late cancellation or no-show might make the diner think twice about doing it again, it might also make them choose another restaurant for their next dining experience with a cancellation policy that doesn’t affect them.
Why sending reminders doesn’t always work
Sending email reminders or SMS reminders can help, but with people having so many different message formats to keep an eye on in their day to day business, it’s far from a guaranteed way to make sure that they remember to keep their upcoming reservation.
These days most restaurants have some form of online reservation option. This makes it quick and easy to book a table of course; but it also removes the human element from the equation, which can lead people to think less about quickly booking two or three different restaurants to make sure that their dinner meet is a success.
What if there was another way
Now there’s a whole different way of making sure that your guest will turn up.
What if you could radically reduce no-shows PLUS:
- give your guest the VIP treatment and make them feel special
- ask for any changes or updates to the party or time of reservation
- ask if there are any allergies or dietary requirements ahead of time so you can prepare
- ask if there is a special occasion and if there are any special wishes because of this
- upsell before the guest even arrives by asking if they’d like – for example – a bottle of champagne waiting for them at the table
…and any other extra information you’d like to get.
How?
The huge, lightning-fast improvements that have been happening in AI over the last year mean that it’s now possible to have an AI assistant phone up your guest and conduct an incredibly human-like, polite, professional and friendly courtesy call with your future diner, confirming the reservation while asking if there are any changes or special requests.
If you’ve got a weekly special that you want to sell, it’s incredibly easy to update the AI assistant on a daily or weekly (or monthly) basis with your current special offers.
If you want to push a particular wine or cocktail, we can very easily make sure that the AI assistant includes them in the conversation.
And you get all the information, precisely and simply without any unnecessary fluff, in whatever format you prefer: google sheet, whatsapp message, you name it.
Our ThatWasEasy AI assistants are ready to roll
That Was Easy AI now provides an AI voice agent that will conduct a courtesy call to your guests 24 hours before their arrival to:
- Confirm that they’re coming
- Ask if there any allergies or dietary requirements
- Ask if it’s a special occasion in order to prepare their visit to make it special
- Let them know about your specials of the week
- Ask if there should be a bottle of sparkling wine, cake, flowers or anything else waiting for them when they arrive
Drastically cut down on no-shows and late cancellations while making your guest feel like a VIP with a courtesy call the day before they arrive from our AI voice agents that are:
- Incredibly human-sounding
- always polite
- always professional
- always friendly
- always there
- multilingual
- can engage your guest in chatty conversation
- sends the info from the call to whereever you want, whether whatsapp, email, google sheet or something else.