The no 1 priority for every hospitality operator is to keep their guests happy by providing them with memorable experiences that cannot be found anywhere else. 

Using a booking platform that allows restaurants to build rich guest profiles, hospitality operators can leverage using this information to level up their guest experience and drive more repeat guests to their venues.

These guest profiles should contain all the crucial guest data to help them create personalized dining experiences and deliver high-quality service that in turn boost their business profits.

What are guest profiles?

With a sophisticated restaurant booking platform, it is easy to track and customize guest profiles. They can capture guest information from different aspects of the guest journey such as from the booking form, email sign-ups, or up to the time guests provide feedback via guest surveys. 

These are the types of information that can be stored as part of a guest database with the right booking platform:

• Name 

• Phone number

• Email 

• Preferences

• Birthday and Anniversaries

• Special Days

• Other info (mobility requirements, allergies, dietary restrictions)

Restaurant owners need to include names, phone numbers and email of guests as part of their guest data to be able to effectively communicate with them.

Data ownership with advertiser sites or OTAs

While guest data is easy to collect with booking platforms, hospitality owners should be aware of who owns customer data when choosing their restaurant booking provider.

Why does it matter who owns the guest data? Well for one, data is crucial to the overall success of the business with more than half of restaurant bookings normally done online. Whoever controls and owns the data can market to guests directly.

There's a huge difference between having a restaurant provider platform via an OTA/advertiser site versus one with a tech partner. When a booking is made via a third-party advertiser site or OTA, they are normally the legal controller and owner of the guest data. 

This means that the restaurant is not allowed to market to their own guests or contact them outside the scope of their immediate reservation. Meanwhile the owner of the guest data–in this case, the OTA–can advertise to guests and even send them to a competitor venue, which means a loss of profit for that restaurant.

Tip: Hospitality owners should check their privacy policy before signing. Some OTA partners may add a disclaimer that absolves them from any legal responsibility if and when data is misused or if data protection is infringed.

RELATED ARTICLE: Restaurant reservation systems: Who's holding your eggs?

TableCheck as a data custodian: Your data, your property

With a tech partner like TableCheck, restaurant owners can have some peace of mind when it comes to their guest data. TableCheck acts like a data custodian and only manages guest data for its clients to help them take their business to the next level.

Since its inception, TableCheck has been committed to data transparency. Hospitality operators are the main data owners and have full control of their guest data. 

Not only can they use guest data to improve the overall guest experience for their guests, they can also use it for marketing campaigns such as sending targeted email marketing to guests based on their activity, spending, and habits or simply communicating with guests prior to their arrival to the venue to reduce the number of no-shows in their restaurants.

TableCheck Insight: Your secret superpower

TableCheck’s mission is to help hospitality operators drive more profits to their business. But aside from using guest data to enhance the dining experience for guests, TableCheck also has a powerful business analytics tool called TableCheck Insight that presents data in a way that is simple and accessible for restaurant owners.

Hospitality operators can access data analytics and can see patterns and trends in their industry, and analyze different segments of their business not just in one but across multiple venues. With TableCheck Insight, any hospitality owner–whether they have one or multiple businesses–can make better-informed decisions about what steps to take in their business to achieve their profit goals. 

Here are just some of the ways that restaurants can use both guest data and data analytics to their advantage:

1. See guest spending history to enhance menu

Hospitality owners can view guest spending and see what the guests' preferences are. They can compare that with the other menu items that are not likely to sell or identify which ones are the most profitable. They can then use this information to revamp or enhance their menu. It may be as simple as changing the name of the menu item and/or offering it as a special promo for maximum profitability.

2. Cancellation and prepayment

No-shows are the bane of every restaurant. Not only do they cause a loss of profit, it also means a lot of wasted food when guests suddenly cancel the booking. To stop no-shows, restaurants can gather the credit card details of the guests and require cancellation or prepayment at the time of booking. This is now becoming a norm in the restaurant industry and guests are no longer hesitant to pay restaurants in advance.

3. Marketing opt-in

Attracting new guests costs more than retaining new ones. So in order to keep a loyal clientele, restaurant owners should be able to build a smarter marketing strategy to retarget their current customer base. Restaurants can only be able to do marketing campaigns if they have built a rich guest database that they own and control. By using guest profiles and more in-depth intelligence data gathered using the booking form, surveys, etc, they can create target marketing campaigns to more specific guest segments like VIPs or first-time diners to entice them back to the venue.