27 Mar 2019 | Blog
Whether it’s a family announcement, a Birthday celebration or just an excuse to get together on the weekend, dining out is the perfect way to get groups together which means catering to groups is an essential part of running your business. Unfortunately, whether it’s a fine dining restaurant, a boutique cafe, a pub or a club, group dining comes with its logistical challenges both for you and for your customers.
For those of you business owners that offer table service, you will be all too familiar with group diners who want to split the bill at the end of a meal. Unfortunately, individually processing payments for all diners on one bill can be very time consuming and inefficient as it ultimately removes your staff from being able to service other clients. Not only that, every individual transaction generally comes with a cost. For this reason, many businesses resort to disallowing customers from paying separately which ultimately leads to a negative experience for diners.
For those venues who only offer counter service, group diners still come with their logistical challenges. Splitting the bill is generally not an issue as most guests will order and pay for themselves. However, this can often lead to a disruptive dining experience when group orders are not processed together. It can be a real challenge for staff to process the group’s orders consecutively to allow the whole party to actually dine together.
Serving groups can be a challenge, but love them or hate them, they are a necessary part of a sustainable business. So what can you do to provide better service to groups dining together?
If you haven’t already explored it, one solution is to implement a mobile ordering platform like TableTime. By providing your customers with a solution to take more control over their own order you can start to overcome some of these typical challenges and beat the group dining blues. Here are just some of the reasons why:
No need to split the bill
TableTime allows for in-app payment, giving customers the ability to order individually, as a couple, or as a whole group. Ultimately, this means there is less time spent at the end of the meal settling one bill. And when customers are given control over their payment, there is more time for staff to prepare and serve other patrons.
On top of that, TableTime absorbs all bank fees with each transaction. So you no longer need to be concerned about excessive bank fees that come with EFTPOS transactions when groups want to split the bill.
No more disjointed dining experiences
Let’s face it, no one wants to line up to order when they have company; it defeats the purpose of a group dining experience. With TableTime on your side, you give your customers an option to stay at the table and order at their leisure, so they can continue to enjoy their experience in your venue. And when your customers have a good time, there is a better chance of them returning to your venue again.
Time orders perfectly
When you have group diners lining up to order, one of the challenges is processing the orders consecutively through the kitchen so that all group members can dine together. Often staff have to keep the order open until the last person from that group has placed their order. This can result in staff forgetting to complete the order in the club POS system, and so it never reaches the kitchen. As a result, customers get frustrated and angry when they find out their food hasn’t yet been prepared after a significant wait.
With TableTime, all orders and payments are processed without manual error and group diners can assign a table number to their order. This makes it very easy for staff to identify which orders should be prepared and served together, without having to worry about those human errors that can occur and ultimately damage the reputation of the venue.
These are just some of the many reasons why TableTime can make group dining a better experience for both you and your patrons. If you wish to know more about the pre order food app, visit https://tabletime.com.au/ today.
