Technology, particularly within the food industry is growing at an exponential rate in variation, utility and customer care. Although customers are still hungry as ever, the way they now interact with their food has completely changed, in large thanks to mobile. In the digital world we live in, more restaurants are using mobile applications to streamline solutions and add value.
Dineplan has launched South Africa's first instant booking platform for restaurants. It is an innovative app that enables patrons to now browse and instantly make restaurant reservations according to customer ratings, specific cuisines, availability, name, area or even by current location. It allows diners to instantly confirm electronic bookings at any time.
“We wanted to create an app that was simple for the general public to use to find and instantly book a table at any one of the 1 000 South African-based restaurants currently using Dineplan," explains Bluegrass Digital Managing Director Nick Durrant.
With Dineplan Restaurant, managers are able to check up reservations and give the management the option to add a real-time booking widget on the restaurant websites. The system has an offline mode which ensures reservations run smoothly even when unexpected internet connectivity occurs.
Dineplan has streamlined the restaurants’ reservations thanks to its flexible availability settings.
The system has provided a much needed and solid service for restaurants across the globe - plus it is easy to use with no previous training required to get you going. You can use this service on any internet-enabled device like computers, smartphones, and tablets, and its data usage is minimal.
It also creates reservation statistics which can be used by managers to analyses booking for different seasons, the frequency of walk-ins and no-shows, and gather data on bookings per month. The system also collates email address which can be extracted to reach out clients with seasonal offers and e-newsletter as a way creating loyal customers.
The app has the ability to remarkably build an end user’s profile over time. This attractive feature is supported by 2 significant features the online booking and the database. Whenever each booking is entered, the software automatically creates a client record which the restaurant can use to flag client as either negative or VIP.
Dineplan also permits management to add customer preferences and notes thereby personalizing dinner experiences for all repeat clients.