Where do your bookings come from? Phone? Website? Bookings app?
When they come in, how do you keep track of them? Online diary? Paper diary? Spreadsheet?
Do you pay a large fee for a bookings system that doesn't make your life easier or increase bums on seats?
Too many #pubs and #restaurants rely on outdated or expensive systems to take bookings. Sometimes these systems charge diners to confirm their bookings or charge the restaurants themselves for taking deposits and sending out SMS confirmations. Not only that but bookings app listings appear above the restaurant's own website in search results meaning higher booking costs and less exposure. All too often the systems are complicated to set up, use up valuable time on staff training and operators are forced to enter contracts typically between 1-3 years with early termination charges.
It's a bit of a minefield out there, and like most tech in the #hospitality industry, often proves so time consuming and/or cost prohibitive that operators give up altogether and stick to what they know.
Now that our founder owns his own pub/our head office, we have a real life example of the dojo bookings system in action and it's pretty impressive.
In Short
It's an end to end restaurant management system built by restaurant people for restaurants.
Key Points
Easily manage all your bookings, however they are taken (phone, online, walk ins), in one place from any device. Plus it saves time by automatically seating diners to the tables you have defined.
Gives you the option to take deposits to protect against no shows.
It's the only bookings system to integrate with Google Reserve so potential customers can book directly from Google search results.
There are currently 850k diners currently using the dojo bookings app who will be able to find your restaurant.
Nice to know
Simple to set up. Paul can provide an online demo then there's a bespoke on boarding process and a single line of code that needs to be added to your website
Promote exclusive offers to thousands of customers
Manage peak times by letting your customer join a virtual queue & get a text when their table is ready
Get to know your customers so you can personalise their experience with you
Dojo offer a live chat team ready to help 8am-11pm every day
Does it actually bring in more business? Judging by the number of bookings confirmation messages in Paul's pub inbox we'd say yes!
How much does it cost?
The first month is free so you can try it out and see what you think. After that it's £99 a month with no additional costs for operators or diners. As long as you get the bookings link up on your website within 2 weeks the set up fee of £80 is waived.
How long will I be tied in for?
The contract is monthly rolling with no cancellation fees
Final thoughts
When setting up the pub, Paul looked at all the bookings solutions and decided that dojo was far and away the easiest and most cost effective to use.
"When we re-opened The Queens Head, we originally launched DOJO Bookings just for the restaurant and then updated the areas to include the dining room, tables for the quiz night, the courtyard when the sun shines and then tables for drinks only. We control the amount of tables available and when so we can still cater for walk-ins and be fully in control. The messaging facility to customers is a fantastic way of engaging prior to arrival and it has definitely been a worthwhile investment.
We also thank all customers post visit (using the bookings platform data) and ask them to subscribe to our loyalty program and receive regular newsletters - win win!
When you then consider any deposits are also linked to our DOJO payment solution it makes life so much easier and allows my team to focus on customers rather than cashing up and booking admin."
Paul Marsh, Founder of S4P & Owner of Chase Inns
With Flat Iron, The Breakfast Club, Wahaca and Nandos already onboard, it's already endorsed by some of the best in the business as well 'The Little Guy' himself aka Paul.
Why not download the app from Google Play or the App Store and give it a try as a customer?
Contact us on 01727 515150 or sayhello@switch4profit.co.uk so we can show you how the Dojo Restaurant Management System works via an online demo.