Restaurant Reservation App Development: A Guide to Scheduling and Managing Bookings
Restaurant Reservation App Development: A Guide to Scheduling and Managing Bookings
Gone is the time when making phone calls was the only way to reserve a table at a restaurant. Today, the same can be done with the click of a button if using a restaurant reservation app.
As a business owner, developing your own booking app you receive advanced information about the guests and the details of their arrival. You reduce food wastage at your place and minimize the chances of booking refusal due to the non-availability of certain food. On the whole, you minimize the chances of open tables.
This article is your complete guide on how to develop an app for restaurant reservations. Below, we are sharing information about the advantages of such applications and guiding you through their types and key features.
Booking systems: Advantages for restaurants and customers
In restaurant circles, there exists a term that no restaurant owner, manager, or waiter dares to say out loud — open table. What does it imply? As an owner, you pay dozens of bills. And after paying for food, electricity, rent, and other stuff, you, as a businessman, want to see income. However, the profit is low unless you find a way to cut the number of empty seats at your restaurant. It’s easier to do with a mobile application for restaurant bookings.
Advantages for owners
If using any system for table reservations, restaurants can benefit from:
- Taking reservations 24/7. Your dining place might not work round the clock and your manager might not pick up the phone day and night. But your app will always allow guests to make bookings and pre-order outside the business hours.
- Managing different reservation lists concurrently. For example, a manager can easily integrate reservation lists with waitlists to have a full understanding of seat availability and overlaps in the schedule if any.
- Tracking the workload. It’s good to know the precise quantity of booked tables, customers, and menu preferences for the day. With a mobile app, your staff remains informed and works accordingly.
- Cutting the workload. When you use an application for booking tables, you reduce workloads for administrators. Instead of receiving phone calls, they concentrate on daily operations and improving the service.
- Reducing no-shows. A well-developed booking system always sends customers notifications before reservations. This option helps you significantly decrease no-shows.
- Promoting discounts. An application can also be used for offering various loyalty programs to new and regular customers as well as prioritizing table reservations.
- Increasing sales. This particularly applies to millennials that, according to statistics, place over 30% of their orders on phones.
- Increasing guest satisfaction. What a customer likes the most is an easy table booking procedure. Using the app they appreciate the absence of waiting lines and the ability to enjoy quick seating. Thus, they value the place more
Advantages for customers
When restaurant customers use a table booking app, they can benefit from:
- Refusing from phone calls. With an application on their mobile phones, restaurant customers are at a one-click distance from reserving a table and placing food pre-orders.
- Reading reviews before booking. It’s a common practice today to read reviews about a dining area and its menu before reserving a table on a specific date. This practice allows people to make the right decisions.
- Booking tables at any time. As the app works 24/7 and all the required information is provided online, customers do not feel any constraints to book a table here and now.
- Preordering food and drinks from the menu. It’s not that a customer can use an app only to book a table. They also can choose dishes from the menu to cut the wait time as they come to a restaurant.
- Paying in advance. After the table is reserved and the menu positions are specified, a customer can pay beforehand in order not to wait for the check while in a restaurant.
- Reducing frustration. Usually, frustration takes place when customers stand in long lines for tables, need to expect dishes, and checks. With a restaurant reservation app, guests can easily plan their time.
Eventually, with an app like this, your restaurant has all the chances to stay ahead of the competition while your customers are able to book tables wherever they are, at work, at home, or on a bus.
Types of restaurant booking systems
The market offers two types of systems for restaurant booking: third-party websites/apps and own branded apps for direct reservations. Below, we are sharing details on each of the types.
Third-party websites and apps for table reservations
They are often referred to as marketing machines since they have all the required tools to boost the number of customers in your restaurant thus reducing open tables. Here’s how these websites or apps actually work:
- Their owners make investments in website/app development.
- Restaurants and restaurant chains are encouraged to use the app and list their tables and menu.
- App owners advertise their digital product to potential customers.
- Being interested in booking tables online, customers use the app, search for restaurants, reserve tables, decide on the menu, and make online payments.
Today, a market leader among third-party software for table reservations is the OpenTable app. Being launched in 1998, the OpenTable app became the industry’s breakthrough. And even though there have appeared other similar products ever since, OpenTable holds its position.
The table below presents the market’s top restaurant reservation systems from the point of view of their key features. Check it out to know what users prefer them for.
At first glance, such software offers nothing but benefits. However, third-party systems have drawbacks too. Among others, restaurant owners mention monthly fees most often. The more advanced and feature-rich the software is, the higher is the rate. At times, a single restaurant’s expense can reach thousands of dollars.
Say, you, as a restaurant owner, choose to pay the high fee just to have access to a larger client base. But what about a long list of other drawbacks that distract restaurant businesses from turning to the third-party software? Regular users say that third-party platforms:
- Are hard-to-use because of a bad layout
- Build loyalty to their own services rather than to the services of their partner restaurants
- Choose to attract clients to own platforms instead of promoting restaurants
- Can be overloaded by many users and work really slowly at times
- Delete negative reviews
- Add extra charges to the bill
- Give rewards and take them away without reasons or notice
- Can cancel a booking without any notice
- Send spam messages and deprive of a chance to unsubscribe
- Don’t show full restaurant menus
- Do not connect to calendars
- Make users click on numerous restaurants to find the one that meets the client’s needs
These drawbacks make restaurant owners think over their own restaurant booking app development. If using their own apps, restaurants receive a chance to cut the quantity of drawbacks and double the advantages.
Branded application for table reservations
While all third-party applications work pretty much the same, branded restaurant booking apps are different. On the one hand, there are apps that allow clients to pick the reservation date but not the table. In this case, a manager decides on the seating. On the other hand, there are apps that allow customers to decide on everything — date, time, and the table via a floor map.
Why go with your own branded app? While developing it, you are free to decide on the feature set that is the right for your dining area. Plus, you pay for the development once, forgetting about monthly fees.
The feature set for a restaurant booking app
Before contacting a restaurant booking app development company, spend time deciding on the feature pack for your mobile app. You should think over two separate sets of features — for staff and guests.
App features for guests
- Quick registration — App users should be able to register and sign in via telephone number, email, or an account on social media.
- Profiles — They should give access to favorites and history of bookings.
- Search — It should better be advanced search by cuisines, time, ratings, suggestions, etc.
- Menu — A really good application gives access to the actual restaurant menu with the ability to change some ingredients.
- GPS navigator — It is a must for guiding visitors to new restaurants.
- Floor map — It’s often referred to as a floor/seating map to reserve seats according to their preferences.
- Online payment — Allow your customers to make transactions beforehand via a reservation application in order to skip the need to wait for the check.
- Discounts — They are the core of the restaurant’s loyalty program. You can offer discounts to regular users and make special offers on some special occasions.
- Notifications — They are sent for reservation confirmation and as reminders before the due date.
- Renting out the restaurant — As a rule, this option is a must if a restaurant can be rented out for a birthday party or wedding.
- Social media integration — It’s for inviting family or friends on social media to share a booking at a restaurant.
- FAQ section — As a helper for potential customers with questions.
That’s not a problem in case you haven’t decided yet whether to create an app for Android or iPhone. We have experience in using Flutter for creating an app for both. Check out what our team has done for Can Tho.
App features for restaurants
- Calendar — For scheduling working hours
- Floor map and a seating chart — To manage tables, have a full picture of open and reserved tables
- Search — It should offer filters by bookings, time, and customers
- Seat combination — It is a must for optimizing the floor plan
- Payment dashboard — With it, a manager can track payments, check old and new money transactions
- Diner book — It includes customer information including reservation history that allows administrators to suggest dishes depending on guests’ preferences during previous orders
- Messaging — For sending emails or SMS to confirm reservations
- Push notification — They are sent whenever a table is booked
- Updating — It allows a manager to update or change the menu, images, or customer details
- Cancellation — To cancel bookings
- PoS system integration — It allows to handle online transactions and optimize the workflow
The cost of creating own reservation app
How much does it cost to build an app for restaurant reservations? is the question that interests you the most. And, we are more than sure, you are expecting exact numbers. However, no development team can tell you the precise cost. They will provide rough pricing. Why? The final price greatly depends on the final product’s complexity and the number of hours the team will require to complete the application.
And there is one more thing you need to know about if you still have doubts about whether to develop an app for restaurant reservations or not. This type of mobile apps will make you visible to many new customers allowing you to grow and earn more.
If you have made a decision to bring your restaurant business to a new level, contact us. Taking the chosen must-have features into consideration, together, we’ll work on the design, backend, and many other specifications.
