Academic Research: Dealing with No-shows

A recently published piece of academic research by two PhD candidates at Wharton School aims at offering restaurants a recommendation on how to deal with problem of no-shows.

"The average no-show rate for restaurants in big cities is around 20%, and for an industry with margins as low as 3% to 5%, no-shows can lead to significant losses especially when restaurants are turning away customers waiting outside." (Reddy, 2012)

Two possible remedies were considered in this paper: to punish no-shows by charging fees and to encourage show ups by giving discounts.

As a result of their paper the researchers make three main suggestions to restaurants.

1. "First, we suggest that restaurants should charge no-show customers a penalty equal to the price they charge customers who show up". There are already high-end restaurants such as the Chef's Table in Brooklyn Fare that currently charges a no-show penalty equal to the price of the meal.
2. "Second, we advise that incentives should be given to reservation customers to encourage them to show up. In other words it is optimal for restaurants to give discounts to customers who commit to pay the now show penalty by making a reservation [...]."
3. "In particular, when the market size becomes greater than a certain threshold, it is optimal for the restaurant to operate as a pure walk-in restaurant."

Implementing these three recommendations will result in an economic benefit for restaurants.

"In numerical examples, we found that a combination of the no-show penalty and price discrimination strategies brings about a 20% profit increase for a realistic range of parameter values."

Download the research

Posted by Wlad

First Class Restaurant Bookings

New publication on the GoalEurope

Recently there has been published a new article about us on the GoalEurope, a company which provides advisory services in the area of nearshore software development in Eastern Europe.

First of all the article gives a short overwiev of about Bookingrid's variable pricing model and the opportunity to sell reservations on the secondary market. Moreover the author of the article points out that from her point of view the discount system might work well not only in big cities like London, but also for example in Germany too, "where even upper-middle-class citizens carry brick-size voucher books with them just in case to get discounts in various places."

To read the full article, please click here.
Posted by Wlad

First booking sold

The first booking has been sold for restaurant Maurizio's at Rickmansworth during a marketing campaign through Facebook which was initiated to find the ideal pricing strategy for this class of restaurants. Consequently this fact gives us the awareness that our interface is handy for consumers' usage. We will carry on collecting statistics which will help us to find the most beneficial pricing schemes for our users.
Posted by Wlad

Bookingrid on BBC Radio

Bookingrid was recently on BBC Radio. To listen, please click here. The interview starts from 0:31:48.




Posted by Wlad

Next Up in Fine Dining: Pay in Advance

Nick Kokonas got the idea for his new reservation system while listening to phones ring off the hook at his current bastion of haute cuisine, Chicago's Alinea. "If you sit in that room for a day, you'll think of it," Kokonas says. "All you have to do is hear Emily and Amanda say, 'Sorry, we're full. Sorry, we're full.'"

Instead of paying reservationists to perform customer relations that were inadvertently "pissing customers off," Kokonas came up with a revolutionary concept: an entire restaurant that wouldn't piss anyone off. There would be no hounding for reservations, and no bill dropped at the end of the meal. Kokonas has now built that restaurant - and he's even figured out an algorithm to determine the price of dinner. 

Next Restaurant, which opens this month in Chicago's hip West Town neighbourhood, is his second collaboration with the 36-year-old star chef Grant Achatz. Their six-year-old Alinea is basically the best thing that's happened to the city since Oprah: It's one of only 93 restaurants in the world to have received three Michelin stars and is ranked seventh on S. Pellegrino's list of top restaurants worldwide. Unlike Alinea, where reservation strivers have to beg to sign up to take advantage of rare last-minute cancellations, Next sends people who want to eat there to its website. There they'll be asked to pay in advance for a non-refundable meal ticket that includes food, drinks, tip, and tax. Next will serve one the matic prix fixe meal each night for a period of three months before moving on to a menu with a new theme. The first dinner - based on the cuisine of Paris, circa 1906 - will cost $65 to $110 per person (not including drinks), depending on the desirability of the reservation date and time.

By making diners do things his way, Kokonas thinks he can deliver exciting food at a lower price. Still, this worries Achatz and the other chefs, who believe in serving customers what they want. It is, however, more cost-effective not to listen to such diners. "If somebody walks in and says, 'I'm a vegan,' then there [has to be] a whole different menu," Kokonas groans to Achatz. "We lose money on that person." What about vegetarians, Achatz asks. "We're not going to serve vegetarian meals for Paris, 1906!" Kokonas says. "Come when we do Indian food!"

To get to the full article click here.
Posted by Wlad

Michelin starred restaurants Pied à Terre and Rasoi By Vineet Bhatia offer tables with Bookingrid

Two Michelin-starred Restaurants Pied à Terre and Rasoi By Vineet Bhatia have started to offer tables with Bookingrid. 

 

Posted by Wlad

New Zelandian press publishes an article about Bookingrid

Below you will find an article which the New Zelandian press has published about us.

"A new online booking system for restaurants has been designed to eliminate no-shows and maximise profit making opportunities.

Based on the established airline ticketing systems that reward early secure bookings, bookingrid.com plans to develop a centralised marketing facility for restaurants as well as better management of table reservations.

The system provides an easy-to-use plan of restaurant tables with real time status updates of reservation status. It provides a number of reservation options, primarily a booking with deposit that transfers the deposit to in-restaurant payment at the conclusion of the meal, with no fees, and meals at lower fixed prices.

Customers unable to make their booking are able to offer these reservations to other diners, recovering their deposits, with the incentive being the lower than the no-reservation price. Restaurants also have the opportunity to manage turn-ups with a proportion of free tables that are sold on the night for a higher price.

Implicit in the system is the development of the site as a gateway to restaurants for customers, with the bonus of it becoming a place for extra marketing of last minute deals and other on-the-hoof sales techniques."

Posted by Wlad

The London Evening Standard publishes an article about us

Yesterday the London Evening Standard published an article about us with the title: "The latest experience in London dining: Pay for your meal before you eat it".

London venues are looking at introducing an “airline-style online reservation system called Bookingrid — where customers pay in advance for a table, spending more the closer they book to the time they want to turn up. Restaurateurs say it could revolutionise their industry. Under the new system, dining rooms “sell” tables with a minimum non-refundable spend per head — for instance £100 for a table for two. Customers pay by credit or debit card at the time of booking.

Indian restaurant The Cinnamon Club, in Westminster, is among those considering the new system. Marketing manager Priyanka Sharma said: “It could revolutionise the whole restaurant booking system. It could be good from the customer’s point of view because if they don’t have much time, they won’t have to waste it ringing around to see if they can get in somewhere, they can simply use the site to buy the table they want.

“Of course not everyone will want to put all their money up front, but we do get no-shows every day and this could make a difference.”

To get to the full article click here.

Posted by Wlad

First Public Appearance and Big Success!

The first ever article about Bookingrid was published on http://www.bighospitality.co.uk, the most reputable ressource for news in the UK restaurant industry. Without any understatement we can say that this article was a great success. Luke Nicholls, the writer of this article, pointed out that high-end restaurateurs and industry experts are heavily complaining about no-shows. As the quotation from the article shows the writer sees Bookingrid's potential to solve this problem and become an industry standard for online restaurant bookings.

"Bookingrid could finally be the innovation that restaurants have been waiting for to stop operating on a first-come, first-serve basis and begin taking full control of their revenues."

We highly recommend to read the whole article. To get to it click here.
Posted by Wlad

Partnership with Qype signed!

This is a part of an article which was published by Qype announcing our new partnership.

"Qype is happy to announce that we’ve partnered with Bookingrid to offer you, restaurant owners, even more booking alternatives.

Tired of no-shows? Eager to increase you average bill? Want to attract cash-rich, last-minute decision makers? Then Bookingrid is your solution.

Bookingrid is an innovative booking widget that is now available on Qype. Designed to increase your revenue from pre-booked tables – it secures payment upfront which allows you to reduce those annoying no-shows and maximize your average bill at the same time. There are no sign-up fees, no listing fees, and no booking fees (for free bookings).

What’s the big deal – isn’t it just another booking system?"

To get to the full article click here.
Posted by Wlad

Promotion of Bookingrid in The Restaurant Magazine

There will be an advertisement of Bookingrid in the coming issue of Restaurant Magazine next week. Restaurant Magazine is a reputable journal with 16,000 issues and thus we expect to directly reach our target group with our promotion.

Posted by Wlad

Facebook Integration completed- First Restaurant places Button on Facebook Page

We have successfully developed a way to place our 'Book Now' button on Facebook pages of restaurants. Thus we enable  more than 900 million Facebook users to conveniently book their favourite restaurants directly on Facebook. Hence we create a completely new distribution channel for the restaurants that use Bookingrid and give them the opportunity to sell their reservations through their Facebook pages without any additional effort.

Maurizio`s, a popular Italian restaurant in a London's suburb, has already started to use our new service.

Posted by Wlad

Started working with our first client!

We have started working with our first client. Its "button" has been placed on dine.bookingrid.com.

http://dine.bookingrid.com/Restaurants/Consumer/Browse.aspx?screenNumber=1

In the nearest future it will be placed on google maps.

At the moment we are running the the real-world testing of our system, developing cooperations with restaurants, its clients and testing different strategies of maximising profits for restaurants, etc.

The next step is to expand our initial client base to 15-20 restaurants and put their buttons on their websites and restaurant guides, among these:

• http://www.qype.co.uk/
• http://www.hardens.com/
• http://www.yelp.com/

Furthermore we expect to receive further feedback about the effectivity and usefulness of our service.

After this we are going to start with the wide-scale promotion of our system.

Posted by Wlad

Customers say "Yes" to deposits for restaurant bookings

According to a recent poll 82.8 % of restaurants customers were in favour of a deposit when taking bookings.

No-shows are costing some Hunter restaurant owners hundreds of dollars a night in wages and wasted produce as diners make bookings, sometimes for large groups, fail to turn up, or arrive with half the number of people they had booked for.

Restaurateurs who spoke to the Newcastle Herald said ‘‘no shows’’ were an expensive and regular occurrence which was embarrassing for operators and could cost at least one wage for the night.

In a business that runs on tight profit margins, a couple of parties failing to show can wipe out a night’s takings and result in produce, prepped for a fine dining experience, dumped in the garbage with the evening’s scraps.

In response restaurants started to look for ways to deal with no shows. But the solution is already there. It's simply called Bookingrid. To find out why read about what Bookingrid offers.

To get to the full article click here.

Posted by Wlad

Study: 95% Of Restaurants Don’t Have Mobile Sites, Only 40% Have Online Menus

According to a new study by Restaurant Science, a restaurant industry information and analytics provider, only one out of eight full service restaurant chains and a depressing one out of twenty independent restaurants have a mobile website. What makes this even worse is that according to some reports, half of all visits to restaurant websites are from mobile devices.

Compared to other businesses, the study argues, restaurants still have a long way to go in using the potential of the Internet. Thus there is a great opportunity to participate in the development of this industry and this is exactly what Bookingrid gives you the chance for.

To get to the full article click here.

Posted by Wlad

Restaurant no-shows: are booking websites to blame?

A number of high-end restaurateurs and industry experts have condemned the use of online reservation systems, claiming booking websites are contributing to the growing number of people booking tables and not showing up.

Mark Poynton, chef -patron of Restaurant Alimentum in Cambridge, echoes the view, that booking websites have added another dimension to the problem, revealing the financial damage that fickle diners are causing for his business.


"This year alone we have had 43 tables not show up, which equates to over 100 people and about £7,000 in revenue," he said. "And it is mainly toptable that's the problem. We try to keep track of everybody that does and does not show up to the restaurant, but if the trend continues then we may end our time with toptable and hopefully gain more revenue".

So maybe an exchange based booking platform which gives the client the possibility to sell his reseravtions could turn out the solution for this problem ?

To see the opportunities Bookingrid offers click here.

To get to the full article click here.

Posted by Wlad

Update: "The Button" has been developed!

"The Button" software has been developed and is ready to install. Hopefully, the next post will have a link to a first restaurant-publisher. If anyone is interested in having a look at "The Button" before that, please send password and link request to query@bookingrid.com. A relevant brief instruction will also be provided. A few introduction meetings with restaurants have given 100% positive feedback.

To get to "What has been done" click here.

Posted by Wlad

Noma fights no-show

Do all restaurateurs love their clients? No doubt, unless you do no-show.
Noma, the most rated place in the world, is leading the gang in customer relations management.

Posted by Igor

"Hot New London Restaurant Dabbous Is Worth Wait", but why wait if you can get a table now?

Fancy lunch at Dabbous, the new restaurant of a little-known chef that opened earlier this year?
The first available table is on June 19. Or maybe you’d prefer a weekend dinner for two? That will be September 22. But what about using Bookingrid and being just a few mouseclicks away from a reservation for a dinner tonight ?

To get to the article published on Bloomberg click here.

Posted by Wlad

"Knives Are Out for No-Show Diners"

Recently the Wall Street Journal published an article about the increasing number of no-show diners which pose a risk for the restaurant business. In response restaurants started to look for ways to deal with no shows. But the solution is already there. It's Bookingrid. To find out why read about what Bookingrid offers.

To get to the article click here.

Posted by Wlad