How to make restaurant wait time work for you
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Managing restaurant wait times is an inevitable part of the restaurant industry, and doing so is nothing new. Long lines can be a great sign for a restaurant, indicating that it’s in demand and people are willing to wait for a meal. But customers have limited patience, and knowing there are long wait times can force a would-be customer to go somewhere else.
In the past, managing wait times was an inexact science, to put it lightly. Managing wait time estimates involved guesswork, potential lost revenue, and stress on the staff, managers, and customers. In addition, staff and managers would have to make often inaccurate assessments as to when the next table would open, leading to delays and frustration.
Potentially long restaurant wait times aren’t unique to full-service restaurants either—even drive-thru operations can experience long wait times. Ideally, the customer experience wouldn’t involve waiting at all, but that’s a fairy tale.
What’s not a fairy tale, however, is the fact that tools now exist to help maximize wait time efficiency and streamline customer communications. Yelp Guest Manager’s waitlist feature was built for precisely this purpose. So just how does it work? We’ll get to that momentarily.
Let’s explore restaurant wait times and strategies for how to handle them. We’ll discuss tools and tricks of the trade to help improve the restaurant experience and give restaurateurs a leg up on the past.
Restaurant wait times: Then and now
In the past, managing wait times required staff and managers to give their best guess as to when the next table would be available. You could do this by estimating the general table turnover time, but statistics didn’t guarantee the speed with which one table finished dining.
And while restaurateurs may have been keen for long-term table-sitters to vacate their tables, rushing customers off of a table is never desirable, especially in a fine-dining scenario.
This situation led to often woefully inaccurate restaurant wait times, frustrated customers, and frantic staff. Unfortunately, this is still the case in many restaurants that haven’t joined the modern world.
Combining busy kitchens, a hectic dining room floor, and uncertainty is a recipe for disaster. Add that to the labor shortage resulting from the pandemic, and you’re looking at long wait times even in situations where the restaurant may have plenty of seating capacity.
Yelp Guest Manager: Enter the modern world
One decisive way to remedy uncertainty and give customers more waitlist options is to include Yelp Guest Manager in your restaurants’ toolkit. The Guest Manager integrates seamlessly with your point of sale (POS) system to get an accurate wait time and makes signing up for waitlists easier for guests.
The functionality is super simple, and we’ve had great responses from customers who use the platform.
For example, diners can now sign up for a restaurant’s waitlist online via their Android or iOS device. Guests receive real-time SMS updates on how much time they have left before their table is ready so they don’t have to clog your entryway or waiting area.
This online waitlist service reduces customer and staff anxiety about wait times while helping to reduce no-shows and line abandonment. Best of all, it can be fully automated, which means no extra burden on you and your staff.
In addition to syncing with your POS system, Yelp Guest Manager provides a restaurateur with oodles of data on customer purchases and behavior that help make decisions easier.
You can nail down your most popular times, determine what dishes sell best at what times, and much more. As a result, your restaurant manager will have more data than ever before, opening the door to informed choices and shorter restaurant wait times.
Understaffed? Yelp Kiosk to the rescue
Another valuable option to tackle staffing woes and wait times is Yelp Kiosk, an automated check-in station that allows customers to seat themselves. This can help reduce the need for or eliminate dedicated host staff while allowing customers extra freedom to help choose the table they want.
Yelp Kiosk can help free up front-of-house staff to attend to seated customers more diligently, whether you’re dealing with reservations, walk-ins, or waitlists.
Managing waiting customers
What can you do once you have customers waiting at your location? Rather than let them sit idly, it’s a great opportunity to showcase your brand and make some loyal customers.
When restaurateur Mark Canlis explained how he handles waiting customers, it was all about making them feel heard. Acknowledging them, explaining the situation, and providing some free drinks or appetizers can go a long way with customers.
If you have a bar area, encouraging customers to sit there during their wait time with a drink and a snack on the house will make the wait less painful and even enjoyable. This is especially true if your average wait time is regularly 15 to 30 minutes or up—you’ll need a long-term solution to keep customers happy while waiting.
And while no restaurateur wants to have to give away product for free, recalling the wholesale cost of products rather than the retail cost can take the sting out of a cocktail, beer, glass of wine, or appetizer.
It costs you very little in the long run and can have a positive long-term effect, especially if the guests take to social media to brag about the excellent service.
Personalized experiences make restaurants grow
Customers appreciate a personal touch, and being able to connect with them on a personal level is a sure-fire way to get them to come back again and again.
Making sure your restaurant stands out by optimizing your wait time is one of the best things you can do to stay ahead of the competition. Yelp is here to help make managing restaurant wait times as easy and seamless as possible with Guest Manager and Kiosk.
Want to know more about how Yelp for Restaurants can help? Want to see how Guest Manager and Kiosk work? Contact us for a free demo, and we’ll show you around so that you can get the best options possible for your customers.