Tired of reading the same standardised messages? Well, guess what? Your guests are too! It’s time to get personal.
Written communication is like a dish best served hot—engage with your guests at every stage of the booking process and leave them hungry for more.
In Part One of this two-part blog post, we showed you how to explore your brand identity and use your restaurant’s unique tone of voice to enhance your booking communication.
In this slice, we will bite deeper into personalised booking communication and how even the most informative texts don’t have to be boring.
Let’s get to it… Let’s get personal!
The booking flow refers to the several steps it takes for a guest to make a booking at your restaurant.
In its simplest form:
With DinnerBooking, you can personalise unique texts in the booking flow to make the user journey that bit more special.
Why not welcome your guests even before they’ve booked?
In the example below, we invite our prospective guests into the DinnerSlice universe, with a warm welcome, tease for the tastebuds, and a gentle reminder of the opening hours.
Serve up a slice of your personality to kick-start a quality dining experience. This personal approach might just be the tipping point for a guest to book with you.
At DinnerBooking, we offer many customisable templates, which allow you to get personal with your guests down to the detail.
Something as standardised as the ‘booking comment’ text can be edited to match your tone of voice, with the benefit of being specific to your restaurant’s requirements.
The default text is ‘add a comment,’ which is perfectly fine…
(If you want to be like everyone else)
But why not get creative?
Example: ‘What can we dough for you?’
Or if humour isn’t your thing, try bieng more specific…
‘Gluten-intolerant (or similar)? Let us know!’
Spicing up even the simplest of texts will warm up your guests for the main event.
The customer is always right, right?
Wrong.
The guest is always right.
With ‘max pax message’s’ & ‘no available times,’ make your guests feel wanted and heard.
When a guest tries to book a table for more people than your online booking system allows, a ‘max pax message’ pops up.
The point of this message is to guide guests to contact you via email or phone. That way, you can plan ahead to accommodate larger parties.
Think of it as the start of a conversation with your guests. You’re inviting them to let you know their preferences, and, of course, you’re excited to welcome larger groups to dine at your place!
Take a look at this example below:
Keep the tone positive, build trust, and kick off a valuable exchange.
This polite start could allow for an opportunity to upsell special group offerings in a follow-up email.
When your restaurant is fully booked, it’s important to guide potential guests toward other options.
With the ‘no available times’ text, you can draft engaging message that invite guests to find a solution.
In the example below, we suggest booking another day or reaching out to us directly so we can work it out together.
Make sure your guests don’t leave the booking flow feeling disappointed, as you want them to book time and time again.
Now armed with a handful of examples, you’re ready to elevate your booking communication to the next level.
Remember, the guest experience begins even before they set foot in your restaurant—so get personal right from the start.
This concludes our two-part post on booking communication, and we’ve barely scratched the surface…
Want to learn more?