Technology
The Leaky Bucket Syndrome: Why Your Restaurant Reservation Process Is Leaking Leads & How to Fix It
Katelyn Andrews
5 min read
Aug 26, 2024
Katelyn Andrews
5 min read
Aug 26, 2024
As a restaurant owner, you’ve poured time, energy and money into creating an efficient booking process and marketing campaigns to drive reservations — but how many diners actually make it past your website?
Just like a bucket with holes, your website could be letting potential guests slip through the cracks. From a hard-to-find reserve button to a confusing cancellation policy, even minor issues can lead to abandoned bookings and lost revenue.
To help you identify the most common cracks in the booking journey, we teamed up with Bums on Seats, a UK-based restaurant sales and marketing agency that specializes in profitability audits.
In this article, we’ll dive into the five essential steps for auditing your own online booking process and how to plug the leaks to keep your reservation pipeline flowing.
Think of your restaurant website as a bucket and potential diners as water. As you drive visitors to your site, water flows in and slowly rises, but some spills through the cracks. The leaking water represents the diners who visit but don’t convert into reservations. This is what Ed Christmas, managing partner at Bums on Seats, calls a “leaky bucket syndrome.”
Since 2019, Ed and his team at Bums on Seats have specialized in fixing these “leaky buckets” in the hospitality industry. They’ve worked with over 100 businesses, helping them optimize everything from reservation systems to strategic sales and marketing initiatives.
According to Ed, many restaurants pour resources into marketing but overlook the flaws in their own booking systems. “You can have the world’s best marketer who drives loads of traffic to your website, but if your systems and processes aren’t efficient, those leads fall through the cracks, “ he explains. “Before you double down on marketing, you need to plug the leaks.”
Diners visit your website for all sorts of reasons—checking the menu, finding your location or even just browsing. Not everyone’s intent is to book a table. However, by analyzing your reservation widget and booking channels, you can pinpoint why those with booking intent aren’t following through.
“The first thing we do when we audit a restaurant is get under the bonnet to understand the systems and processes and how they impact the customer journey. For example, if our client uses SevenRooms’ restaurant reservation system, we start with the raw booking data,” Ed shared.
Understanding how many potential diners actually make an online reservation is critical. Ed and his team’s first step is to understand a restaurant’s reservation conversion rate, which is the percentage of website visitors who complete a booking out of those who express interest.
A higher conversion rate suggests your booking process and marketing are effective, while a low rate signals that something could be amiss. Here’s how Bums on Seats calculates it:
Reservation Conversion Rate (%) = (Number of Reservation Covers/Total Number of Potential covers) × 100
Ed further explains, “In a week a restaurant might have 1,000 inquiries which equates to 2,500 covers. Of those 2,500 covers, 1,500 convert into reservations. The reservation conversion rate is 60%.”
Conversion rates vary depending upon the venue. Ed and his team work with restaurants and pubs individually to create specific benchmarks based on the venue size, type, location and competition.
“It also depends on how complex the venue is,” Ed said. “A healthy conversion rate for a pub with multiple rooms and four private dining spaces will differ from that of a one-room restaurant on Oxford Street focused on turning tables. But by and large, we work with businesses to try and get them to around 70%.”
The more data and booking channels Ed's team can access, the more accurately they can diagnose where improvements are needed.
“If a restaurant has private dining and email enquiries separate from the reservation platform, we take those into account as well. If the overall conversion rate is low relative to that business's ideal benchmark, we start to investigate the guest journey for opportunities to optimise both the systems and processes.”
If your reservation inquiries aren’t converting, limited availability could be the culprit — you could simply be turning people away.
A low conversion rate is understandable for a popular restaurant where tables are booked weeks in advance. But according to Ed, even in such cases, there could be opportunities to capture more demand.
“For our clients using SevenRooms, we can look at booking trends for a venue to determine ‘Okay, everyone is trying to book at 7 p.m. on Saturday night.’ What can we do within the system to push more guests into those shoulder times? Can we increase pacing limits to make more tables available during peak times? Can we cross-promote a nearby venue in the portfolio that still has availability?”
SevenRooms’ Revenue Management features, including the Reservation Widget Demand Report, help you understand where reservations are being missed and offer smart solutions, such as optimizing table configurations or adjusting pacing limits.
“It’s essential to configure the systems to work as hard as they can for you,” Ed shared. “It requires being proactive about finding ways to drive more sales. Again, it starts with that leaking bucket and filling the holes in the foundation.”
For more tips and tricks on maximizing your busiest and slowest shifts, check out our revenue management guide with advice from revenue management expert and Emeritus Professor of Operations Management at Cornell University, Sherri Kimes.
Next on the checklist is ensuring your booking flow is as seamless as possible.
“The guest experience doesn’t start when they walk in — it starts when they land on your site and book,” Ed explained. “Does your website, booking widget copy and images match the tone and the overall experience they can expect? How easy is it to book? What group sizes can I book for? Do I have to put in a credit card?”
If your guests have to dig through multiple pages to find a reservation button or navigate a complicated booking process, chances are they’ll abandon the effort. The goal is to remove friction wherever possible.
Take London’s Park Chinois, for example. Their “book to dine” button is prominently displayed at the top right of their homepage, alongside eye-catching videos showcasing the venue.
One click takes guests to a branded reservation page with all the information they need — availability, policies, and even a Google map.
SevenRooms’ reservation functionality allows for an even more personalized booking experience, like letting guests choose specific dining areas with photos and descriptions. This not only enhances the reservation experience but also reduces friction, making it easier for diners to complete the booking.
Even with a smooth booking process, strict or confusing policies can deter guests from reserving.
For instance, while requiring credit card details can reduce no-shows, it also adds a layer of friction. Ed recommends comparing your policies with local competitors to find a balance.
“If you require a £20 per person deposit with a 5-day cancellation window, but a competitor three doors down is only £5 per person with a 24-hours, that’s going to be more attractive,” he says.
One way to ease the booking process is to remove the requirement for reservation deposits. However, protecting yourself against no-shows and cancellations is important, especially during peak shifts. Ed recommends considering a flexible reservation policy limited to peak days and times or requiring deposits only for larger group sizes.
“Setting up cancellation policies for larger groups helps ensure these parties will show up, while removing the policies for smaller groups eliminates friction in the process,” Ed shared. “We’ve seen adjustments like these result in a 30%-40% increase in bookings.”
Finally, Ed and his team examine how many reservations actually make it to completion.
By analyzing your cancellation and no-show rates, you can find areas to further optimize the customer experience. SevenRooms automatically tracks these metrics, helping you stay in line with the global benchmark — ideally 11% for cancellations and 3.5% for no-shows.
But beyond just requiring deposits, Ed emphasizes the importance of follow-up communication.
“Once a guest has booked, what confirmation are they receiving? Are they getting an email, text message, or both? Is the voice and tone consistent with the brand? How frequent are the reminders?”
Maintaining multiple touchpoints with guests from the time of booking to their reservation can help get them in the door.
Ed says two reminders is the sweet spot for standard reservations but to mix it up across channels (e.g. email, text or phone call). Regardless of your communication method, keep it personal and fresh rather than templated.
“This is where automation is really useful, “Ed said.” A system like SevenRooms does the follow up for you with reservation reminders you can personalise. It even sends post-dining surveys and thank-you emails for after the experience. Again, the goal is to get these systems to work harder for you.”
In today’s competitive restaurant landscape, being proactive about leveraging technology and data is key. Ed and his team at Bums on Seats believe that data-driven decisions are the cornerstone of a successful business.
“Centralising your Wi-Fi data, bookings systems and using a CRM like SevenRooms gives you the rich data you need to optimise the experience and understand who your guests are. You can then retarget based on demographic information, visit and spend history,” Ed shared. “Remember, it’s 6-7 times cheaper to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one.”
What we’ve covered here is just the starting point of a full Bums on Seats audit. They’ll dive into almost every aspect of your business to uncover opportunities to boost profitability and optimize the guest experience across marketing, sales and operations. To learn more, visit Bums on Seats for a consultation.
And if you’re ready to harness the power of an integrated restaurant CRM, reservation software and marketing platform, book a demo with SevenRooms today.
Ed and the Bums on Seats team also analyzes areas to improve profitability throughout the guest journey. According to Ed, adding upgrade options and offers at the point of booking is a significant opportunity to drive revenue.
“We worked with a single site in Shoreditch to add upselling at the point of booking. On average they bring in an additional £1,000 - £2,000 per week. That extra revenue can sometimes be the difference between keeping the doors open and closing.”
To prove Ed’s point, our data shows that reservations with prepaid upgrades like champagne toasts, birthday cakes or tasting menus average 35% more revenue than those without.
What should you charge for reservation deposits or no-show fees? Check out our latest article on restaurant cancellation fees and deposits and how to find the sweet spot.
Many of our clients automatically send a menu or video wine list a few days before to first-time diners to boost engagement, reduce late cancellations and increase spend. Our latest data report shows diners want the following information ahead of their booking:
