Restaurants move fast. Guests book, change, and cancel reservations all the time, and it can be hard to keep up with what’s going on — especially when you’re on the go between meetings, or when you’re managing multiple locations at a time. OpenTable’s product and engineering teams know how important it is not just to give you access to the information you need, but to deliver it in a way that helps you understand and react quickly.
Today, we’re excited to announce our latest GuestCenter update, which brings push notifications to our iPhone owner app. Now you’ll never miss a beat in your restaurants. When a VIP walks through the door, or when a guest changes a reservation, you’ll be alerted immediately with a notification on your iPhone and Apple Watch. The best part? You can pick and choose which events you want to be notified of so you’re in the loop when you want to be — and the rest of the time, you can block out the noise.
Know exactly who’s coming to the restaurant — and who’s already there.
It’s never OK to miss a VIP — engaging with them at every opportunity is how you build and nurture lasting relationships. Now, you can receive a push notification to your iPhone or Apple watch when VIPs make a reservation, arrive at the restaurant, or get seated (at their favorite table, no less).
You can notifications for new reservations, changes, and cancellations for all of your other guests as well, and you can choose how far out you want to receive the alerts to give you and your team time to prepare.
When you’re on the floor in the middle of service, sharing information with your staff is a big challenge. Everyone’s moving a mile a minute, seating and serving guests, and interruptions to that fast pace can be costly. With push notifications, any staff member using the GuestCenter owner app can be immediately clued in to important changes and updates so you’re all working together. So for example, if you’re a GM and your chef is also using the app, both of you can see when that VIP is seated at the same time and bring out her favorite appetiser, stat!
Similarly, push notifications make it easy to pass on important information to your hosts. If you see a regular book a table for Thursday night, you can add a shift note for that service. Hosts will see it on the iPad and seat that table and assign servers accordingly.
What’s next?
All of this is just the beginning. Enabling push notifications for GuestCenter on iPhone and Apple Watch means that in the future we may also be able to notify you when large parties book, requiring additional preparation by your team. You can imagine a future in which GuestCenter notifies you about a sudden bump or decline in covers, or anything else out of the ordinary. Ultimately, we want to do whatever we can to help you get prepared, communicate with your team, and deliver the best possible hospitality.
Learn more about the latest GuestCenter updates here, and get the updated app on iTunes here.
