Online dining reservations – designed with restaurants in mind

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Well, the buzz is certainly intense lately regarding online dining reservation software. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal on May 20 comparing several products including OpenTable, UrbanSpoon and ReservationGenie. The article highlighted restaurateur frustration with excessive fees and the limited availability of cost effective options. I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t throw our hat in the ring.

ReServeIT from ReServe Interactive allows restaurant guests to book their reservations through a restaurant’s website 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  The difference between us and some of the other applications on the market is that we do not charge a ‘per seat’ or ‘per head’ transaction fee, require excessive set up costs or hit restaurateurs with miscellaneous nickel and dime charges. We offer a solution that puts guests in your dining room and revenue in your pocket.

Also, other systems use simple ‘slot’ technology to book reservations – like a glorified spreadsheet. The user has to make a best guess as to how many online reservations to set aside on a given evening.  What happens when that estimate is off and the online reservation system tells a customer that the dining room is full, even when it’s not? How do you explain it to customers who become frustrated enough to call or stop in only to find that there are actually several seats available? 

ReServeIT utilizes your actual table inventory to determine whether space is available to make a reservation. That means you have accurate, real-time management of your online reservation “pool”.  ReServe will always manage available reservations based on the parameters you define and what is happening in your restaurant in real time. Plus, if a customer’s requested reservation time is not available, you decide where to refer them.  You don’t have to worry about having your potential customers getting sent to your competitor.

Here are some other things to know about ReServeIT:

• You can manage reservations across multiple restaurants within a single database.
• You own your reservation and customer data and won’t get charged to use it to market more effectively.
• Your website and ReServeIT seamlessly integrate so you can customize your links and landing page to present a branded, serviced-oriented image to your guests throughout the reservation process.
• You can use customized short links for social media applications and online dining guides.
• You can add the customized links anywhere you want to accept dining reservations and send branded and personalized reservation confirmations to your guests.

So, to all of you out there that are frustrated with the cost of your current system, know that there are other, more affordable, options available that were designed with your success in mind.

Introducing…. Keith Ewell, Strategic Account Manager

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Keith joined ReServe Interactive in August of 2005 as an Account Executive, and is currently in the position of Strategic Account Manager, which he admits is a pretty fancy title for a sales guy!  Keith was drawn to ReServe because his position allowed him to couple his five years of experience in the restaurant industry with his 17 years of consultative sales experience, helping hospitality professionals understand and choose effective technology solutions to solve operational issues and take their businesses to the next level. By his own admission, Keith LOVES his job!

Keith grew up in Vacaville, California and began his love of the hospitality industry at the Nut Tree, a landmark restaurant group.  Corporate giant, Chevron, soon lured Keith to San Francisco with the promise of higher income, benefits and “normal” hours.  Ten years later, Keith tired of being “normal” and returned to his one true love, hospitality, joining Paragon, which operated three restaurant concepts nationwide.  At Paragon, Keith was part of a team that travelled to under-performing stores and implemented new service standards and menu concepts, optimized systems and successfully moved the bottom 30 percent into the top 25 percent across the brand.

From there, Keith began his sales career where he found he enjoyed helping people navigate the labyrinth of technology solutions, and seeing their eyes light up when they realized how much easier their lives could be.

When he’s not busy doing demos and servicing clients, Keith enjoys playing golf, collecting fine wine, reading and playing more golf!

“It was a pleasure to work with Keith; he provided the needed info clearly and concisely and was more than willing to provide the referrals necessary to insure our continued partnership for the next year, overcoming a proposed change to the competition. Keith should be considered a valued asset to your operation.” Rita Norman, Holiday Inn Hotel – Odessa

What our customers say for us

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

We’re very fortunate to have amazing and loyal customers. They work hard every day to successfully manage their businesses and service their guests. They’ve come to us looking for a hospitality management software solution that not only meets their needs, but exceeds their expectations. We work hard to comply.

We like talking about our software with our customers, prospective users and the industry in general. We could go on and on about all of the wonderful things our software does, and all of the amazing features that make managing operation easier than ever, but we’d rather let our customers do it for us. They willingly share their ideas and their suggestions for product enhancements, and they even share their approval. Below is a short list of some of the nice things our customers have to say to us and about us.

After researching several software products, we chose ReServe Interactive because of the focus and attention to detail the software places on booking Events. It will allow us to streamline our processes and serve our customers more efficiently.-  James LaMontagne, Johnny’s Halfshell

ReServe Interactive software has been an integral part of our success. In just six months we were able to nearly double our sales, and have decided to implement ReServe at all of our locations. – Audrey Joyner, BB King’s Blues Club

I just love ReServe. It is so user friendly and I have worked on many different systems and this is the best by far.- Brenda Brandt, Bellamere Winery

ReServe is by far the BEST reservation/TM software I have ever used. I’ve used many different programs and nothing compares! ReServe can basically run the restaurant for me. I would gladly recommend ReServe to others. - Rick Roberts, The Melting Pot – Tucson

The software is great! We love it!- Cathy Jacobson, Bice Ristorante – Orlando

ReServe is still a very slick, easy system. I can get 15 proposals done in ReServe in the same amount of time it used to take me to do one or two.- Lisa Reliford, U.S. Senate and Capital Visitor’s Center

As a former Delphi user, I find ReServe to be much easier to use, and I especially like the way the customer contact system works.-  Sulema Kiekintveld, Wild Fire Grille

I LOVE the software! I’m not very savvy when it comes to computers, but ReServeis so easy to use! It keeps me very organized, and the time I save allows me to focus on bringing in new business and making sure that our events happen flawlessly.- Maritza Stabile, Mistral Restaurant & Bar

When Considering Software Interfaces, Remember to Look Under the Hood

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

A lot of software programs use interfaces to enhance their offering. Interfaces allow users to work with a software solution that offers a variety of additional tools to meet their business needs. The trick is making sure the interfaces you are promised make your job easier.

When it comes to hospitality management software, there are products on the market that claim to offer intuitive or easy to use interfaces, but essentially they are just providing a link that directs the user to another application all together. A true interface allows both programs to automatically communicate with each other, easily sharing necessary data and ultimately enhancing the user experience.

At ReServe, we don’t just interface with anyone. We look for software partners that support their products and are committed to servicing their customers according to similarly high standards. Our goal is to select partners willing to share information and work side-by-side with us so that the interface is fully integrated and seamless.

Our customer base is broad, spanning several market segments with diverse technology requirements, so our software and any interfaces we offer, need to accommodate that range of needs, from the most basic to the most sophisticated platforms. As such, each interface we select fits naturally with our process driven design and simply becomes an extension of our software, running automatically and anticipating our users’ needs. Our interfaces are smart and work for the user, providing accurate and necessary information, presented on screen where you need it and only when you need it, without complicating routine tasks with extra steps or superfluous data.

Once we commit to an interface, we support it and keep it working throughout upgrades to our software’s architecture. That way, the interface is always functional and critical customer data is never lost. We stand behind our interfaces and make sure we understand the architecture of each third-party product, so that we can easily navigate it and troubleshoot user questions. We don’t bounce our users around between software companies and support departments. Instead, we work with the user as a single point of contact, trusting in our interface solutions and the companies that provide them.

We work with several industry partners to develop integrated interfaces, including Element Payment Systems for credit card processing and storage, MeetingMatrix for room diagramming, as well as various POS system software providers, paging system vendors, and food costing system manufacturers.

One example of a very efficient interface from the user’s perspective is our interface with MeetingMatrix. Through our partnership , we’ve developed an interface that seamlessly launches the MeetingMatrix software with the simple click of one button on the ReServe screen, transfers event information between ReServe and MeetingMatrix, and instantly creates custom room diagrams using the unique specifications for the event that have already been configured in ReServe.  With this solution, there is no double entry of information required. All relevant information is automatically shared between ReServe and MeetingMatrix, enabling the user to be very efficient in each program.

The elegance of a software solution should be in its simplicity for the user. Software should be assistive, not prohibitive, taking care of the details, providing the right data only when and where it is needed, and freeing the user to focus on their job. That is what “easy to use” and “intuitive” means. However, “easy to use” does not mean easy to create.  It’s not enough for a company to say its product interfaces with another product. As a user, you’ve got to demand a demonstration of how an interface actually works, because software cannot be a productivity tool that adds real value unless it is elegantly simple in its functionality.  

So, before you decide on a software solution that offers interfaces, make sure you are getting what you’ve been promised and what you’ve paid for. Demand true communication between the products, ease of use, and business enhancing functionality. After all, you have more important things to do than struggle with software solutions that are more trouble than they’re worth.