What is driving the increase in online reservations for restaurants?
Demand is being driven from both customers and from restaurants.
From Customers
From calls to clicks, the world is changing. According to The 2007 American Express Hospitality Monitor 62% of UK consumers search the internet to decide which restaurant to visit. Restaurants, that’s over half your potential customer base.
When they find the restaurant they want, how do they book? How they book and how they want to book are two different things. Many customers book on the phone because they have to. Restaurants that can be booked online are booked online. Why? Because web booking is quick, it’s easy, and it’s free.
From Restaurants
The phone is great. But wouldn’t it be good if the phone only rang when you are there and when you’re not busy? The worst time to take a booking by phone is when you’re at your busiest.
The best time to take a booking online however is anytime. Anytime means: when you’re closed as well as when you are too busy to answer the phone. You can’t answer the phone 24 hours a day 7 days a week, but the internet is open for business anytime.
Looking at our 2007 data, at Livebookings Network we've found that 18% of online bookings are made between 10pm and 10am - that’s 18% of bookings you might have otherwise lost. On the other hand, 44% of online bookings are made during busy service times. The most popular hour of the day to make a booking online is between 1 and 2pm - that’s when you want to be focussed on service, not answering the phone.
More and more customer reservations behaviour is changing and the internet is proving to be an important channel that is being adopted by both restaurants and their customers in increasing numbers.
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