8 Time-Saving Tips and Tricks for Restaurant Management

Feb 4, 2020 5:46:20 PM

Time is money, and that’s a fact! In the restaurant business, time must be treasured and ideally you would want to dedicate your time to only serving the guests that are seated in your restaurant right now. However, in reality this isn’t always possible as precious minutes and even hours are stolen away by various tasks that get in the way. Many restaurants use the Tablein booking system to help them save time.

Customer Story

Trattoria Piccola Italia, Lithuania

The decision to start accepting online bookings via Tablein turned out to be the Holy Grail for our restaurant. After some quick calculations, we realized that it has saved us over two hours per day!

TOP TIPS

How Did One Straightforward Tool Affect Our Time Management in 8 Ways?

Automated System. The most important benefit to us, out of all of its features, was in managing the reservations automatically. Answering calls, replying to emails, and dealing with Facebook messages, was a headache of a task in terms of time we spent on it. Rather than look after our current guests down the hall, we needed to reply to emails and messages and answer the phone. Of course, we need to take in the reservations but the manual booking process was very time-consuming for us. Now, the Tablein booking system handles the needs of our future customers, leaving us more time to look after the customers that are with us now.
Planning Process. We implemented quite a few of the Tablein features to make the reservation process simpler and clearer. We allowed the guests to choose not only the day, time, and number of people for their booking, but the exact menu they wanted, and whether or not wine tasting should be included. This dramatically helped us with internal management processes and helps us to better prepare for the evenings upcoming service with far less stress!
Prompted Bookings. We installed the “Book a table” widget to our website and Facebook page. It’s highly visible and helps to prompt the client to take action. Moreover, the reservation process is really simple and quick to use and we’ve noticed more and more people integrating reservation methods like these into their daily routine.
Message Management. In the case of a guest messaging us, we can easily send them an active link straight to the reservation form by email or on a Facebook message. Guests that want to visit our restaurant will always be happy to fill in a short booking form to reserve a table. If the guest does insist on making their reservation with a phone call, then it’s no problem. We can still open our reservations calendar anytime from a smartphone, tablet, or computer, offering them the available times and tables, and register the booking straight to the system.
Automatic Reminders and Changes. The system sends the guests automatic reminders of their booking. If needed, they can also easily make changes to their booking, which are then immediately updated on our system’s profile.
Visible Special Requests. By filling in the reservation form, the diner can always point out any specific preferences in the “comments” field. It’s so much easier to manage and accomplish these requests when they are visible right there on the screen, for all of our staff to see. Before, special notes and requests could have easily been missed due to notebook pages being turned, and illegible handwriting.
Accepts Deposits & Prepayments. For special events, like many restaurants, we accept only prepaid reservations. Having a tool like Tablein allows us to accept online payments automatically and saves us so much time! Registering deposits from clients when we’re busy, and issuing receipts, while we had a full restaurant to contend with was often difficult to manage and time-consuming.
Easier Accounting. Accounting was getting complicated too. Automatic payments during the table booking process saved us real hours! Even if the guest had to cancel their reservations due to a force majeure situation, we can choose to quickly refund the payment with just one click.

Trattoria Piccola Italia experience sounds familiar? Save your precious time by implementing advanced Tablein system in your restaurant management.