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Tricky Management of Group Reservations: Problems and Solutions

Tablein Team
Tablein Team
Feb 4, 2020 5:47:15 PM
Customer Story

Moon Club, Czech Republic

Moon Club is both a lounge and a restaurant. We offer many events, so reservations are commonplace within our business. However, managing group reservations was always a headache for us. Dealing with group reservations is tricky for many businesses due to the extra organisation involved and having to serve many people, sometimes with many different special requests, under one reservation.

The Problem​

Complications Sourrounding the Management of Group Reservations

  • Moon Club is large venue where people often start with dinner and finish in our lounge with a party. Therefore we get a lot of advance reservations, especially for large groups of friends and special occasions. Unfortunately, internal organisation (when it came to groups) was lacking, mainly because we had no tools in place to help us manage these large reservations, and as such, information relating to the bookings was a mess.
  • Accepting reservations by phone, Facebook and emails was time-consuming, awkward (at times), and prone to mistakes. Taking a name down wrong over the phone could cause embarrassment when checking the customer in, or mistakes could be made in copying information from one place to another.
  • Quite often there is a need to make changes to a group booking, whether it be the number of people, time, or food preferences. Trying to make these changes in a notebook and make them seen by staff across the whole venue was complicated, time-consuming, and again, at risk of mistakes.
  • When we organize events it’s natural that the people responsible for each event are not always on-site. We’re able to answer the call at any time, but don’t always have our reservation journal with us. This made it impossible to register a new group reservation, or make changes to existing bookings, if we didn’t have our calendar with us.
The Solution

Online Table Reservation System

We needed to find a highly functioning reservation management system. The decision that all of our notebooks and inefficient computer programs should all be exchanged in place of an advanced reservation system was clear. We trialled a few of the world’s best-known tools and found that Tablein met our expectations the best.
The Result

Smooth-running Management of our Group Reservations That Saved us a lot of Time and Headaches

  • Since implementing Tablein, we can manage and adapt group reservations quickly, smoothly and accurately. This system allows us to accept all of the bookings online leaving little room for staff errors.
  • Group reservations are made automatically by the customer online so are now very easy to manage. Our venue is big, and the workload is high, so it’s very convenient to be able to manage the whole evenings workflow and prepare for it properly.
  • Information about reservations is accessible online, so when there is a change of shift, any responsible team member can view and change the booking details (note down any changes about their arrival time, number of people attending, food preferences, or any other specific information).
  • Also, being able to see the whole reservation calendar (for the venue and month ahead) allows us to manage the team more efficiently and build an optimal working schedule accordingly.
  • We can always access our real-time calendar, as our profile on the Tablein system is accessible 24/7, from anywhere in the world.
  • We can also easily accept group reservations up to three months in advance. This was really complicated for us before.
Advices

Top Tips by Moon Club

  • Try to use all the Tablein features to the maximum. We allow automatic online reservations for groups of up to 8 people. In the case of higher numbers of people that wish to book a table, we ask them to contact us directly. We then fill out all the reservation information (for more than 8 people) directly to our Tablein calendar anyway. Don’t forget to do this! It’s very convenient to have every single reservation for your whole team in one place.
  • If the group is larger you can ask for advance payments to guarantee the reservation. This can be executed easily via the Tablein system at the moment of booking.
  • Ask the guests to fill in the more detailed booking form online. It’s very convenient for you to have extra information in advance! For us, we find the sections on “purpose of visit” (dinner, cocktails or both) and the “desired length of stay” (from 1 hour to the whole night) particularly useful.

Moon Club experience sounds familiar? Start organising group reservations smoothly and mistake-free by implementing advanced Tablein system in your restaurant management.

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