As we kick off a new year, it’s the perfect time to look back at milestones from the past one. So far we’ve seen 131 million diners were seated per month at more than 54,000 restaurants around the globe using OpenTable software*. From Tastemaker lists to social, we connected restaurants to diners and built over 60 new features into GuestCenter to help you manage your restaurant better than ever – from smartphone to host stand to each table of guests. Read on to learn how you can get the most out of OpenTable in 2020.
1. More digital marketing solutions to help you fill your seats and understand your ROI
We know that with limited marketing budgets understanding the return on your spend is important, so we introduced tracking and reporting across all of your digital channels right in the reservations report. With this new marketing tracking, you can better understand how effective your Facebook, Instagram, and Google campaigns are at driving bookings.
2. Sophisticated, yet simple tools to pack your house while running a smooth service
With new turn and flow controls, you have a flexible way to customise and pace the flow of your dining room to fit your restaurant’s needs by automating your ideal flow and maximising your table availability.
Avoid turning people away when you don’t have to with the reservation waitlist, which lets you add guests to a list when their preferred reservation date and time aren’t available.
Help your staff game plan for each service with the pre-shift digest, which delivers a summary of important details – think large parties and guest count.
Managing your house from the back office is now a breeze with guestbook, timeline view, and shift overview, all available on GuestCenter Web.
3. Robust guest management to deliver extraordinary hospitality and turn guests into regulars
In 2019, we acquired Venga, so you can build better guest relationships, at scale. You can now bring together guest intel from review sites, social, and more to generate a 360-degree view of your reputation across all your locations, empowering you to uplevel your hospitality game.
New booking policies let you customise communications during the booking flow and in confirmation emails, so you can set the right expectations with your guests.
With guest profile merge, you can combine duplicate guest profiles based on specific matching logic, cleaning up your guest database to meet your restaurant’s needs.
4. Enhanced admin, more integrations, and richer reporting to simplify and centralise your business
Restaurant groups can now centralise all user management, shared guest data, bookings, and key performance trends across locations and concepts in a single place: GuestCenter for groups.
Plus, richer reporting capabilities help you understand how your covers break down, know which partners are sending you the most covers, export guest lists, and manage customised reports.
Finally, free integration with additional POS systems – including Impos, H&L, and MICROS Simphony 2 – connect your reservation and revenue data, opening doors to a new world of personalised hospitality, a more efficient front of house, and a better handle on your bottom line.
Set yourself up for a successful new year using all of these capabilities included in GuestCenter. And if you need help, we’ve got 222 support reps around the world to back you up. Just reach out to your account manager or contact our support team at 1300 130 359.
*Based off of OpenTable data from Q3 2019
