As Mother’s Day bookings begin to pour into your venue, it’s easy to start counting your profits. But no-shows can take a sizeable chunk out of your income. We look at ways to prevent this expensive threat.

1. Minimising dreaded
no-shows this
Mother’s Day
liveres.co.uk
HAPPY
DAY
MOTHERS

2. Mother’s Day isn’t just an
important day for all those
mothers out there. It’s a
crucial event in the calendar
for hospitality venues too, as
families look to spoil their
mums rotten over a long lunch.
We already know that liveRES can
help you to fill your tables all day
long with minimal fuss. Carolyn
Jordan is General Manager at
Jolly Farmers, a popular pub
in the McMullen group. Making
the move to liveRES gave her a
massive boost in ensuring her
pub was full all Mother’s Day.

3. “Last Mother’s Day we did 602 covers in
total and our capacity is 160. With the old
pen and paper system, we had to increase
everyone’s turn time to two hours or more.
But now we just let the table management
system do what it’s supposed to do.”
620160

4. With liveRES taking a quarter
of a million booking on
Mother’s Day 2018 alone,
attracting customers and
managing them in-session
is made easy.
250,000

5. But there’s another way
that liveRES can help.
One that falls between
them making a booking
and giving them a great
experience at your venue.
And that’s ensuring they
actually turn up to honour
their booking.

6. 16bna year
No-shows cost the UK hospitality industry a
whopping £16 billion a year. And it’s at times like
Mother’s Day when it really hits venues’ profits

7. That’s over a third
of all guests.
1/3
Out of 120 customers
booked at Brunswick
House for Mother’s Day
2018, 46 failed to show.

8. Mark Birchall, chef-patron
of Moor Hall Restaurant,
reported eight no-shows
in his venue.
Which is even more
frustrating when
you learn that he
had 66 people on
the waitlist who
could have filled the
tables if he’d have
known in advance
that his customers
weren’t planning
on honouring their
bookings.66

9. This is where liveRES helps
Our intelligent system
can send SMS and email
notifications to your
customers to remind them
of their booking. It’s not just
a gentle reminder – it helps
form a relationship with
your customers between
the point of booking and
their visit to your venue.

10. Crucially, it invites your
customers to edit or
cancel their booking
as required. And while
inviting your guests to
cancel may not sound like
a smart idea, it’s far better
to get advance knowledge
than find out on the night
when they fail to turn up.

11. “With liveRES It’s very easy for customers to
cancel, and that’s great. Previously people
would try and call and the line would be busy,
or they’d show up and tell you that it’s now
four for dinner and not six, and you’ve lost
a table. But with liveRES diners go online,
change the numbers in a click, and it’s done
automatically. That’s been really powerful.”
As a Managing Director of
a five-strong restaurant
group told us:

12. “We noticed that one restaurant in
particular had much worse
no-show rates than the others.
This was simply because we hadn’t
activated the reminder emails,
which just goes to show that it
really was the liveRES functionality
that had made all the difference.”
The simple fact is, reminders
work. As the Managing
Director added:

13. Another option to
negate the financial
impact of no-shows is
to ask for a deposit at
the time of booking.

14. The average deposit
per booking was
£23.53, which equated
to £5.46 per cover.
15%
Our bookings data showed
that 15% of all Mother’s Day
bookings last year were
asked to pay a deposit.

15. It’s not a huge amount,
and certainly won’t cover
your costs if they no-show.
But even by paying a
relatively small amount it
makes a psychological
difference. It’s a
commitment. Plus no
one wants to waste
money, even if it is just
a fiver per person.

16. So before you pat yourself on the
back for a job well done when all
your tables are booked this Mother’s
Day, think about going a step further
to protecting those bookings. Act
now to minimise no-shows and
maximise your profits.

17. Want to see how liveRES can
help you boost your income
this Mother’s Day?
Get in touch to arrange a personal demo.
Book your demo