The rise of online bookings has transformed the restaurant industry and today over eight in 10 consumers, a whopping 86%, prefer to secure their table with a few clicks rather than calling in. This shift presents a golden opportunity for restaurants to not only capture reservations but also shape the customer experience from the very beginning.
A restaurant confirmation email – the first and critical touchpoint, bridging the gap between the online booking and the actual dining experience – acts as more than just a formality and if crafted carefully, is an opportunity to reassure guests, boost excitement, and set the tone for a positive visit.
But an optimised email for restaurant reservation can do even more. Restaurants that strategically craft these touchpoints often see reduced no-shows, increased opportunities for upselling, and an overall boost in guest satisfaction.
Here at Access Hospitality, we work closely with operators, helping them leverage the right reservation technology and maximise these customer touchpoints. Our systems are trusted by thousands of restaurants, bars, pubs and hotel operators, improving their enquiry to booking conversion by 24%, generating 14% more bookings and saving over 1000 hours each year through increased efficiency.
In this article, we'll deep dive into how a well-crafted confirmation email becomes an essential part of your success strategy and we'll share the insider tips and strategies to turn your reservation confirmations into powerful tools that enhance your business, whether you're a multi-site business operator or an owner of a single venue.
- Topic:
- Hospitality
Every time food spoils in your fridge or too large a portion of a side dish is prepped, you're not just throwing away products – you're throwing away potential profit.
The average restaurant sees a significant chunk of its revenue disappear due to food waste. In fact, a staggering 21% of that waste comes directly from spoilage, while another 45% results from preparation inefficiencies, as reported by WRAP. These are areas where smart inventory management can make a massive difference.
It's something we hear a lot at Access as a familiar challenge for many businesses in the hospitality industry. With the right tools and strategies, restaurants can streamline their inventory, gain control over waste, and unlock hidden profits, which is what we will focus on in this article.
- Topic:
- Hospitality
The dream of a bustling restaurant that fuels many aspiring restauranters usually consists of happy customers, delicious food, and a thriving business. Yet, focusing solely on the big picture can lead to overlooking essential components, such as a well-designed menu, efficient inventory systems, staff training, and a well-managed kitchen.
Restaurant kitchens are notoriously demanding, and a recent study found that 25% of UK chefs cite poor kitchen management as a major contributor to burnout and high turnover. Since the industry is already plagued with staff shortages, operators must focus on keeping and hiring skilled kitchen managers to ensure the well-being of their staff and the success of their business.
At Access, we've spent more than thirty years helping hospitality businesses improve their workflows and achieve their full potential and we understand that effective management is a core pillar of success.
Kitchen management is a skill that can be learned and mastered, and in this article, we'll dive into the essential strategies to optimise your kitchen and achieve your business goals.
- Topic:
- Hospitality
If you spend much time reading news reports and opinion pieces on how the cost of living is impacting hospitality, you might be growing tired of seeing the word ‘resilience’.
After several challenging years, hospitality owners and operators are looking for signs that the time is coming when they aren’t just stubbornly surviving. But is recovery and growth possible in a world where the cost of living continues to rise, customers are more conscious than ever about how they spend their money, and retaining quality staff is becoming increasingly challenging?
In this article, we’ll tell you why we’re confident that the answer to that question is ‘yes’, and we’ll share practical guidance on the measures you can take to protect your hospitality brand from the challenges imposed by the rising cost of living in 2024.
- Topic:
- Hospitality
Staff onboarding can be a complex process, and in hospitality, it presents an unique set of challenges with many legislative areas that need specific areas of training – such as serving alcohol, allergens, and food safety as well as the majority of hospitality workers being in deskless roles. Add to that the fact that staff turnover in the hospitality industry stands at double the UK average (30%), and it’s clear to see why proper onboarding is something that hospitality operators should focus on.
Here at Access, we’re familiar with the onboarding process. Through our accessible LMS we are delivering hospitality training courses to thousands of new hospitality employees daily, and we have helped companies such as Namco BNAE to develop and implement custom induction programmes to help get their new starters onboarded. It’s fair to say that we’ve picked up a few tips and tricks along the way.
So, why is an effective and consistent staff onboarding process critical for hospitality businesses, and what happens when you don’t have one in place? In this article, we’ll examine the importance of getting it right, share our top tips, and look at some of the common mistakes to avoid.
- Topic:
- Hospitality
Running a restaurant business in 2024 isn’t easy – rising costs of food and energy, staff shortages, supply chain issues, the cost-of-living driving customers to tighten their belts, and unpredictable economic factors throw curveballs at businesses of all sizes. To thrive in this environment, savvy marketing is no longer a luxury, but a survival tactic. Now, more than ever, your restaurant marketing strategy is the key to attracting customers and staying afloat.
But where do busy restaurateurs start? In a competitive market, how do restaurants make themselves stand out from the crowd? How do new restaurants get noticed? And how do the little guys level the playing field when competing against the big brands?
Here at Access, we frequently talk to our customers who are passionate about their restaurants but unsure how to navigate the complexities of marketing. That's why we've compiled the most effective and up-to-date restaurant marketing strategies adaptable to businesses of all sizes and budgets. At the end of this article, you'll be well-equipped with the knowledge and tools to create a restaurant marketing plan that drives results.
But first things first, let’s look at the basics and understand why marketing is so important to your restaurant.
- Topic:
- Hospitality
No-shows are the bane of every pub and restaurant owner's life, accounting for anywhere between 5% and 20% of bookings. At best, no-shows can mean a re-organisation of tables right in the middle of a busy service. And at worst, they can cause a serious dent in a business's bottom line.
- Topic:
- Hospitality
Tips are seen as a massive employment benefit of choosing employment in hospitality. In an industry that has lots of minimum wage employees, tips supplement wages and are a huge motivating factor in providing excellent service – after all, happier guests generally means bigger tips!
But managing, distributing and calculating tips fairly can be challenging for operators. Research in 2022 by Iris Software Group reported that more than 1.2 million hospitality staff in the UK are paying too much National Insurance on their tips.
And with upcoming updates to legislation surrounding tips and tronc systems, there’s never been a better time to review your current procedures and make sure you’re managing tips fairly in your business. With a full suite of software products that support people, payroll and rota processes in hospitality businesses, we’re taking a look at what a tronc scheme is, what the new legislation will mean for operators and how you can set up an HMRC-compliant tronc system for your business.
- Topic:
- Hospitality
Do you know the best-performing items on your menus right now? If you said no – that’s where menu engineering could help you.
Here at Access, we hear about the challenges operators are facing when it comes to creating a robust sales mix that can withstand the fluctuations in the market when it comes to rising food and beverage costs and matching customer demand. The answer? It’s likely sitting in your sales data.
- Topic:
- Hospitality
Pull out all the stops and increase bookings to your venue with our Mother’s Day marketing ideas for restaurant operators.
Mother’s Day falls on the 10th of March in 2024, so there’s still plenty of time to let your customers know what you have planned at your venue. Since over a third of Brits participate in food-related activities on Mother’s Day, the holiday represents a huge opportunity to boost revenue.
- Topic:
- Hospitality
