Do you have what it takes?

Thursday, April 7th, 2011

There’s a general consensus that customer service makes or breaks a restaurant. Industry professionals, insiders and outside consultants agree that exceptional customer service can result in the following:

• trust, confidence and a solid reputation – all can lead to long-term customer loyalty
• happy customers who spend more with less consideration of cost – and they keep coming back
• happy employees who enjoy their jobs and have positive things to say about their place of employment. They tend to stick around longer which means you can decrease the costs associated with hiring and training
• an advantage over your competitors who may not provide the same level of service in the same way
• a better bottom line – it’s less expensive to keep a customer than it is to get a new one. In addition, excellent customer service creates buzz and nothing costs less and means more than word-of-mouth marketing. And, most companies that offer exceptional service are often more profitable overall

We provide our restaurant customers with all of the tools they need to provide incomparable customer service – with the exception of good employees and the drive to stand above the rest. That’s up to them.

Do you have the drive and the staff to take your service to the next level? What about the right dining reservation and table management software?

On my honor…

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

When you make a commitment, you stick to it, right? We’d like to think that everyone follows that mantra, but the truth is, life gets in the way sometimes. Or, sometimes it’s as simple as completely forgetting about something you’ve committed to.

Take restaurant reservations, for example. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there that have made a reservation at a restaurant and then completely forgotten about it. Some people are even known to book a reservation at a couple of restaurants to ensure themselves a table, but then forget or decide not to call and cancel one of the reservations.  Sometimes it’s as simple as an inconsideration and the guest doesn’t think about the impact their no show will have on the restaurant.

To guarantee the maximum level of business in a given night, it’s important to take steps to make sure your guests honor their reservations.

Start with a “call-ahead” or “wait-list” system in addition to or instead of taking reservations. Guests can call twenty to thirty minutes ahead of their desired wait time and leave their name. Your reservationist can let the guest know the anticipated wait time.

If no shows are a recurring and troublesome problem, consider asking guests for a credit-card when making a reservation. Establish a deposit policy that lets guests know they will forfeit their deposit or be charged a fixed amount if they do not show up for their reservation. If you are not comfortable asking for a deposit on a regular basis, consider implementing the policy on holidays or other high-volume occasions. Remember, if you request a deposit on a reservation, make sure you seat guests as soon as they arrive so you honor the guest relationship and avoid losing future business.  Consider holding a table for 10 to fifteen minutes before declaring a guest a no-show. If a guest shows you the courtesy of calling to let you know they will be late, hold the table for 30 minutes to acknowledge their consideration.

If you are dealing with a VIP guests, waive their deposit fee or credit card charge to show them you appreciate their loyalty. Consider developing a frequent diner program to help you keep track of your VIP guests.

In addition, follow up with guests who lost their deposit or were charged on their credit card with a phone call or email restating the no show policy and informing them that they were charged because they violated the agreement.

Taking some of these steps can drastically reduce the number of no-shows that occur on any given night and guarantee that you maximize your entire table inventory.

Will you Q?

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

Part of my job is educating customers about ways to improve operations so that they can see an immediate impact on their bottom line. Our customers need to run leaner, manage operations successfully and build business consistently. Without the right tools, these tasks are challenging to say the least.

Take, for example, dining reservations for restaurants. Restaurant staff needs a way to manage reservations so that they can take advantage of their entire table inventory. They need the assurance that when their guests go online to make a reservation, they find accurate information and can book a reservation easily. They also need a way to keep guests in their restaurant when they find their requested dining time to be unavailable.

When I’m speaking to prospective customers about reservation management, I ask the following: “Can you rely on the reservation software you are currently using?” The answer is usually “That depends.” For a variety of reasons, customers are unsure. They are spending quite a bit of money on some of the systems out there. There is some benefit to the marketing tools these systems provide, but it’s hard to gauge how much business is lost because guests have been redirected to other area restaurants that may have availability. In some case, there is no benefit at all; rather the restaurant feels it’s something that they need to do because they’ve been told it is good business sense to have some sort of system in place.

We end up discussing things like functionality, integration, marketing, and estimated ROI. Ultimately, I end up walking through the features of our software. What’s exciting is that we’ll soon be able to offer more dining reservation tools for restaurateurs. We will launch ReServe Q, a platform that will allow restaurant guests to make dining reservations or add themselves to a wait list using a restaurant’s website or a mobile device such as an iPhone, Android or Blackberry. As part of the ReServe Q offering, we’re forging strategic partnerships with mobile application aggregators and online dining guides to expand marketing reach for restaurants.

Most importantly, we’ve created a tool that will benefit our customers to the fullest with increased business and a better bottom line.

Will you Q?

In their words…

Friday, March 11th, 2011

“We had initially looked at one of your competitors but felt the ReServe Interactive software met all of our needs. We were also very impressed by your attention to detail in answering all of our questions and setting up the software for us. We love working with a company focused on providing top notch customer service.”  - Sam & Harry’s D.C and The Caucus Room

“Our experience thus far with ReServe, as far as timely support and response, has been nothing short of exemplary, right from sales through to planning and IT.” – Christie Penner – The Charcoal Group of Restaurants

“We are loving ReServe. It has helped us streamline a lot of processes (and waste a lot less paper). We look forward to continuing to learn about everything it has to offer.” – Megan Wilkes – Jupiter Bowl

Case Studies in Success

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

Since 1996, thousands of users across more than 1,000 businesses and venues have successfully implemented our Catering, Event Management, Dining Reservation and Table Management Software across their locations. Check out the links below to see how these customers are working smarter, faster and better by taking advantage of the unique, efficiency enhancing features of our software.

McCormick & Schmick’s

Melting Pot

Harry Caray’s

Lucky Strike Lanes & Lounge

Sega GameWorks USA

Georgia Aquarium

Round Hill Country Club

Chicago Yacht Club

Hyatt Regency

Landry & Kling

Hilton Waikoloa Village

Treasure Island Hotel & Casino

Gaylord Entertainment

Icon Estates

Rubicon Estate

What’s News?

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

Have you seen our latest press release? Take a read…

ReServe Interactive Celebrates Continued Growth and New Product Initiatives in 2011

ReServe Interactive, an industry leader in dynamic hospitality management software, including dining reservation, table management, catering and event management systems, has achieved 14 consecutive years of growth with significant increases in key business areas including the acquisition of enterprise accounts with multiple installations.

In 2011, ReServe Interactive will introduce several new products that greatly expand the benefits of their software throughout an organization and provide cost-effective, targeted marketing to drive additional business. First to be released is ReServe Gateway, a robust web services platform that enables enterprise customers to integrate and share ReServe data intelligence with other systems, streamline operations, improve productivity and enhance guest services. 

Second, ReServe will launch ReServeQ, a platform enabling guests to make dining reservations or add themselves to a wait list using a mobile device such as an iPhone, Android or Blackberry. As part of the ReServeQ offering, ReServe is forging strategic partnerships with mobile application aggregators and online dining guides to greatly expand marketing reach for restaurants.

“2011 development plans bring functionality that offers an integrated enterprise view of financial and operational data in ReServe that can be easily extracted and used to improve operations and provide convenient guest services,” says Lynn Carter, Chief Technology Officer. “We are committed to incorporating leading-edge technology for the direct benefit of our users, ensuring that ReServe continues to remain an invaluable resource. Leveraging the fastest growing technology sector today, mobile applications and social networking, is a perfect example. Our offerings in this arena are seamlessly integrated with ReServe and provide great value to our customers by driving more business to their restaurants in a targeted and cost-effective manner.”

Carter also explains that development of these new web services is driven by the needs and requests of some of their larger enterprise customers, but the benefits of these enhancements positively impact all of their customers, as well as the restaurant industry as a whole.

“This past year exceeded our expectations. We maintained a strong presence with the small and mid-range markets while experiencing significant growth with our larger, multi-unit enterprise customers,” explains Mike Edmeyer, Vice President of Sales. “The fact that ReServe is the only tool on the market to adequately manage both events and dining reservations in one system has been a large reason for our success.”

About ReServe Interactive

ReServe Interactive specializes in Catering, Event Management, Dining Reservation and Table Managementsoftware applications for the hospitality industry. Established in 1996, ReServe Interactive software is used by more than 8,000 industry professionals across more than 1,000 hospitality venues nationwide including hotels, restaurants, sports and entertainment facilities, golf and private clubs, cultural institutions and wineries. The company has offices in Livermore, California and Delafield, Wisconsin.

Simple Time Management

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Ever find yourself literally spinning in circles trying to figure out what to do next? The list of Things To Do has become so long that it almost seems impossible to get through. There are only 24 hours in a day and with 8 hours or so dedicated (hopefully) to sleep, the rest of your time is valuable and spinning in circles gets you nowhere. Managing your time is critical – not only to achieving your goals, but to building your business and maintaining your sanity.

Where to start? Well, whether you manage your task list in a software system or on a legal pad, it’s important to follow a couple of key rules.

1. Set priorities – Must Do, Could Do, TBD. Start with items that need to be done by you and done that day. Could do’s are items that can be tackled once the Must Do’s are complete. TBD are items that are To Be Delegated to someone else.
2. Complete your daily tasks first – these are the Must Do’s mentioned above. Focus and complete these first as they are required to meet your job requirements.
3. Eliminate distractions – distractions vary – phone calls, e-mails, unscheduled meetings, Facebook/Twitter/Browsing (yes, we all have been guilty of this at one point). Set aside specific time throughout the day to accomplish or tackle these items. Check e-mail when you get to work, over lunch or a break, and at the end of the day, put non-critical phone calls into voicemail and schedule a time to return them, accept meetings during certain hours and try to stick to it. Keep social media and Internet browsing to your off hours or breaks.

Now, these steps can easily be achieved in ideal circumstances. But, we know there will be days that you are thrown off course. Remember, tomorrow is a new day and a new opportunity to institute more effective time management skills.

We’re all about efficiency and time savings here at ReServe Interactive and we know that every minute counts for our customers. Hopefully the steps above are a helpful tool for you become more efficient.

The 2011 Comeback

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

So, what are your thoughts on 2011 so far? Have you seen an increase in business yet?

Industry experts are predicting growth across the board this year. In its “2011 Restaurant Industry Forecast,” the NRA said the nation’s 960,000 restaurants will see aggregate sales increases of 3.6 percent in 2011, or 1.1 percent in real, or inflation-adjusted, terms. The association also said that operators focused on growth will explore area like mobile applications and social media to expand their reach and grow business.

From customer incentives to online reservation applications to mobile marketing, restaurateurs will be relying more and more on technology to reach a larger audience. Mobile applications and social marketing tools are also changing the way restaurants market to their customers, as well as the way consumers view dining out. According to the NRA, 51 percent of social-media-savvy individuals say restaurants are an essential part of their lifestyle, while 43 percent of all consumers say that.

At ReServe Interactive, we are fully aware of the opportunity presenting itself to our customers and the industry as a whole. Not only are we aware, we are acting on that knowledge to bring the industry new tools to help them reach more customers while preserving their bottom line.

It won’t be long now until we roll-out our latest technology, but in the meantime, we’d like to know…Do you Q?

To read more from the National Restaurant Association, click http://bit.ly/gdwybZ.

Our 15th Year

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

It’s almost hard to believe that we are in our 15^th year of business. So much has changed since we introduced ourselves to the industry in 1996.  What started as an idea to help ourselves has become a force within the hospitality industry. We are literally changing the way our customers are doing business.

Since 1996, our catering, event management, dining reservation and table management product offering has grown to include a web-based solution; we interface with more than 10 industry-leading applications; and we service more than 8,000 users.

And now, in our 15^th year of business, we’re going to take our offering even further by introducing several new features and products including easily implemented web services designed for sharing data between different applications. We are also developing a system designed for publishing restaurant wait times on reader boards throughout a hotel property, as well as features for sharing customer data with a centralized CRM database. Most importantly, we will soon launch a dining reservation focused mobile platform to support iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices.

As time has gone on, we’ve continued to progress and remain a valuable tool for our customers. We’ve helped our customers increase efficiency, enhance productivity and boost revenue. Our platform remains current, ensuring users are able to use the most updated technology solutions to manage their businesses.

This year is a milestone in many respects and we are so grateful for the many customers, industry partners and loyal employees that have brought us to this day. We look forward to making 2011 an unforgettable year.

What our customers are saying…

Friday, January 14th, 2011

“ReServe is by far the BEST reservation/table management 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

“I have been working on Reserve for 13 years. So with new staff coming on board I set them up with the training and decided to see what was new. It was great for me to learn all the new things that have been added in our updates but never really utilized. My staff really learned a lot and April was a great trainer! Thanks and look forward to the webinars.” Janelle Lembeck, Diablo Country Club

“Our experience thus far with ReServe, as far as timely support and response, has been nothing short of exemplary, right from sales through to planning and IT.  Thank you from our team for making this implementation so painless!” Christie Penner, The Charcoal Group of Restaurants

“We’re in the process of fully integrating the program, and our sales staff has been using the software for about 2 weeks & they’re loving it! I’m so happy to have ReServe, and am looking forward to increasing our revenue in the New Year!” Lily Watson, Sterling Affairs Catering

“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