Reserved decision

Guaranteeing seats, increasing productivity and maximising space are just some of the reasons why the region's restaurants are jumping on the reservation bandwagon.

Are restaurant reservation systems popular in the Middle East?

Melanie Koestler: Restaurants require online reservation systems, which will not only monitor the phone and walk-in bookings, but also accept bookings over the internet. It is also crucial to use systems that collect guests' information for the database, and in turn assists future direct marketing possibilities. Trader Vic's, Sakura, Zinc, Certo, Chef's House, Casa Mia and Sukothai have already subscribed to Table-booking.com, and users have the opportunity to save their top 10 restaurants in cities around the world, which allows frequent flyers to access their favourite outlets effortlessly.

Masood Al Janahi: This is definitely a growing trend, as the industry has been very labour-intensive until now. However, as quality staff are increasingly difficult to source, owners and managers are turning to IT for solutions. Customers are demanding practicality, ease of use and reporting functions, with particularly high demand for the products to be supported locally.

Mike Conyers: The Middle East market for reservation systems is maturing roughly in line with other market areas, but operators have been slow to appreciate the benefits of moving processes away from data centres and on to servers hosted remotely by suppliers. Many operators are still working on highly fallible and unreliable pen and paper processes or simple computerised reservations processes with running orders lists, with no focus on optimisation or yield management.

Phil Benson: Reservation systems have shot up in significance across the globe, as not only will a great system tell restaurateurs their top 20 customers immediately, but it also displays that information in ways that are valuable to marketing.

What type of software do you offer the Middle East industry?

Melanie Koestler: We offer an online system, so guests can log-in and have a wide variety of restaurants to choose from on our search engine before making a booking on the website. It works as both a portal website and an individual restaurant management system, and has the ability to cooperate with offline systems via a gateway.

Mike Conyers: We have signed an exclusive agency agreement with Universal Concepts to see Restaurantdiary.com in the UAE, and we hope to provide internet bookings in real time to restaurants.

Masood Al Janahi: The Table Management System for POS is a comprehensive tool for adding, organising and managing table assignments. Restaurant staff can estimate table turn times, allow guests to view their current waitlist status via an external monitor, page guests when tables are ready, access system reports that document the customer's experience, and even interface with third party applications to create a web service for handling internet reservations.

What are the main challenges facing the sector?

Mike Conyers: Restaurant managers can be in a comfort zone about what they can cope with comfortably and how to fill up a restaurant at certain times. These managers sometimes have to be motivated to see the real improvements that our system can bring to an organisation.

Melanie Koestler: Creating awareness of these systems to both the hotel industry and the public, and encouraging people to use the systems properly are perhaps the key challenges we face.

Masood Al Janahi: The sector is falling due to a skills gap in terms of utilising the software to its maximum potential, yet this comes down to the quality and quantity of employees.

How can table management systems revamp front-of-house operations?

Melanie Koestler: It helps the restaurant staff to identify the guests' needs, which adds an extra personal touch and allows management to manage the seating and enjoy hassle-free, maximum utilisation of their resources. We developed Table-booking.com with a restaurant in Berlin, which has an event space for 3000 guests, and we have continually changed and upgraded its features while paying attention to the requirement for smooth and efficient restaurant management.

Masood Al Janahi: Improved output and customer satisfaction are achieved by processing table requests in an efficient and timely fashion. This involves a constant review of table assignments to ensure that the restaurant is functioning at maximum capacity, that customers are seated promptly, and in accordance with their preferences.

What do you offer to reduce the number of ‘How do I...' calls made into the helpdesk?

Masood Al Janahi: We offer user-friendly functionalities for managing the waitlist requests, with keys such as add, edit, greet, call, seat, unseat or abandon a table request. The notes function allows the user to enter additional information about a guest, and pre-configured table preference categories are provided such as view, table type and smoking.

Phil Benson: Designed to resemble an old-fashioned reservations book, our software offers ease of use, and does not require formal training at the front desk, as it can be taught in 10 minutes.

Melanie Koestler: Our system is self-explanatory and extremely user friendly, with icons to explain everything on the portal. If required, we also conduct an initial training session for our clients.

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