A restaurant’s main priority is to encourage more people to make a reservation and check out their food offerings. This may not always come easy due to tough competition, but having a convenient booking system for your restaurant is a huge help.
As more people are looking to place reservations with restaurants online, it’s important to be present where your potential customers are and create an online reservation system that benefits you!
Today, we share our tips to help both emerging and long-standing restaurants in Singapore with setting up their own online reservation system. Here are 5 ways to attract more customers to book your restaurant and boost your sales.
1. Invest in a good booking system for restaurants
Almost 80% of restaurant reservations are made online, so there’s no better time to invest in a user-friendly online booking system than now.
A foolproof booking system encourages more customers to book seats at your restaurant because they can do so any time of the day, even while working.
Plus, when customers book online, you get a valuable piece of information: their email address. You can use this to build a database of people who have eaten at your restaurant and loved your food.
This allows you to send out marketing emails containing greetings, special promos, and menu additions to existing customers.
2. Offer regular restaurant promos
Another way to help increase restaurant bookings is to offer appealing discounts and promos, regularly if you can.
For example, if business is slow this month, consider holding a 20-30% discount on selected dishes to a limited number of reservations. By doing so, you’ll increase the number of bookings when you need them the most. Of course, make sure the numbers work out for your business first!
All customers are looking for ways to save money without depriving themselves of good food, so offering some sort of promos and discounts will entice people to take a risk at your restaurant.
3. Construct your menu carefully
Whether you admit it or not, certain items on your menu may not sell as well as you’d like them to, and this can cause you to make a loss on those dishes.
If this is often the case, maybe it’s time to update and restructure your offeringsl. Perhaps the menu item you believe is the best seller is actually not that budget-friendly in the eyes of your regular customers, or simply doesn’t match the palette of your target audience.
When booking online, the menu is one of the first things potential customers see, so make sure to structure it in a way that would make them want to learn more about your restaurant and its offerings.
4. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly
One of the most effective ways to increase restaurant bookings is to have a mobile-friendly website. Since most reservations are made via phone, it’s crucial to have a website that won’t leave customers puzzled or frustrated as they navigate through it.
If customers visit your website on their phones and are met with a messy or non-responsive interface, then likely choose to leave the page and search for a restaurant where the information is clearly and aesthetically presented.
5. Use social media to build a reputation
Learning how to use social media to market your restaurant can make all the difference in terms of increasing restaurant bookings.
If not from their friends, customers are looking for the next restaurant to check out on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms. People tend to choose restaurants popular on these platforms and those with positive online reviews.
Since every business is fighting for attention online, you have to keep up with the competition by putting up engaging content that tickles your target audience.
