How can a restaurant or pub stop missing booking calls during service?
Send every missed caller an automatic text with your online booking link, your opening hours and a time you’ll call back, such as after lunch service. Leave allergen and party questions to a person: the text should promise a call back, not try to answer them.
By Sammy Morgan, who runs M1 Studio in Chichester. Updated .
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- Industry
- Restaurants, cafes and pubs
- Problem
- Missed calls
- The fix
- Missed-Call Rescue, £800
- Do it yourself?
- Yes, the first steps below
Why it happens to restaurants, cafes and pubs.
- Calls peak during service
- People ring to book tonight’s table at lunchtime and early evening, exactly when every member of staff is on the floor or in the kitchen.
- Answering mid-rush costs service
- Stopping to take a booking means a table waiting for its bill. Letting it ring means a lost cover.
- Many callers only want a table
- If your booking system is online, a link lets them book in a few taps, often before you’d have called back.
- Some calls need a real answer
- Allergen questions, private hire and Christmas parties need someone who knows the kitchen and the diary. A text that says when you’ll ring keeps them warm.
What to do, in order.
Check your booking link
Make sure OpenTable, ResDiary or whatever you use has the right times and table sizes, so the text can send people there.
Write the text
For example: “Sorry we missed you, we’re in service. Book a table here, and we’ll call back after 3pm for anything else.”
Don’t automate allergen answers
Allergen information for the 14 major allergens must be accurate, so the text should say a member of staff will call, not send a menu and hope.
Set call-back times
Between services, and the same time each day, stated in the text.
Automate the text back
Missed-Call Rescue texts every missed caller with your booking link and keeps party and private hire enquiries in one list.
Where M1 can do it for you.
Fixed prices, or a fixed quote before any work starts. No VAT is charged. Any running costs are listed before you agree.
- Missed-Call Rescue £800
Every call you miss in service gets a text with your booking link, and party and private hire enquiries go into one list to call back.
Missed calls get a text back, automatically.
- Online Booking & Deposits £1,800
If you don’t take table bookings online yet, it adds booking with deposits for groups, and reminders, to your website.
Bookings taken online, with a deposit paid up front.
- Website Chat Assistant £1,800
It answers questions about hours, parking, dogs and group bookings on your website at any hour, and passes party enquiries to you on WhatsApp.
Questions answered day and night, then passed to you on WhatsApp.
Want to check the rest of your business first? Take the free Scorecard: 12 questions, about 3 minutes.
Before you decide.
Something else? Ask Sammy on WhatsApp.
We use OpenTable. Does this replace it?
No. The text links to your existing booking page. Nothing about how you take bookings changes.
What does it cost to run?
Missed-Call Rescue is a fixed £800. Text and app fees are paid at cost or directly by you, and listed before you agree. The missed call cost calculator works out what unanswered booking calls may cost.
Keep reading.
Know what to fix. Then decide.
Sammy writes down what’s holding your business back and what to fix first. The Foundation Blueprint is yours within 5 working days of your answers.
From £200No VAT, one payment through Stripe
Not ready yet? Take the free Scorecard, 3 minutes.