An Efficient Online Restaurant Booking System With Real-Time Visibility

https://www.trootech.com/backendundefined

About Client

Leading Restaurant Chain in New York

Industry

Travel and Hospitality

Client Into Business

2010

Location

USA

Introduction

The key to handling modern customers lies in immediate actions.

Customer loyalty is hard to get for businesses since numerous players are ready to serve them at their convenience. In this instant gratification era, OpenTable emerged as a king to the conventional restaurant management and booking system.

Gradually, OpenTable became a household name, evoking curiosity among the travel and hospitality industry about its future. Soon numerous players began experimenting with the OpenTable business model to enter into the market.

Our client discovered TRooTech’s TRooReserve, a ready-to-launch OpenTable like restaurant booking system, to help restaurants streamline their business processes. On the other hand, our client tested the local market and found a sheer discontentment among diners towards popular restaurants. The conventional mode of table booking in restaurants demanded an upgrade. Our client requested the development of an online table reservation software, and we catered to it.

We explained to him that we need to look beyond the existing online restaurant booking systems for offering him better expansion prospects in other geographies. This zeal to differentiate the proposed restaurant booking system through advancements led to some challenges.

Objective

Our client approached TRooTech with a proposition to develop an online restaurant booking system, capable of handling the restaurant-side as well as the customer-side operations. In addition, our client wanted the incorporation of a review system for users to rate restaurants. The OpenTable similar app can also act as a promotion platform for new eateries, cafes, and restaurants, which further led to another horizon for the table booking application. Takeaway Orders it is! Since takeaways and food deliveries make up a significant stream of revenue for restaurants, our client also wanted to offer food delivery options to restaurants. Customers can select a particular restaurant from the list and then choose the takeaway order option to place an order from the restaurant. We suggested three revenue models for this online restaurant management system for our client. Primarily, the revenue was to be generated from subscription models availed by restaurants for efficient internal management. Secondarily, we offered an option to our client to fix a per-table booking charge. Thirdly, restaurants receive direct payments for the takeaway orders placed by the customers. In this case, admin is liable to receive commissions for the orders placed using the table booking software.

Challenges

The online restaurant booking system is primarily about real-time operations. In such a case, it was crucial for us to integrate real-time operations for restaurant managers and customers to access the app in real-time.

There were three operations to be managed in real-time:

Seat Management
Food Management
Bill Generation System

Our Approach

We developed an online restaurant booking system with a suite of software to accommodate all stakeholders. The suite of software included modules for the restaurant site, customers, and cashiers.

The suite of software with real-time view access for floor management, online reviews management, reservation management, assigning waiters, and online bill payments, proved to have offered convenience to all stakeholders.

We also build an in-restaurant experience module for diners offering them the ease to self-assign tables. Our developers added the QR functionality. So, users could scan the QR codes present on the table to self-assign it to them. Besides this, customers can also use the OpenTable like application to place their orders, thereby reducing the wait times for managers to take their orders.

Another interesting feature was group billing. The group billing feature allows individuals sitting on the same table to order their food using their app. Once the food is consumed, the billing is done separately or collectively, depending on the preference of the group.

Business Benefits

Our client was able to launch the application on the scheduled time and deliver high performance to restaurants, looking to manage their floors during slow and rush hours.

Below are some of the business objectives that our client was able to achieve:

The number of diners increased significantly in recent times and our client was able to capitalize on the opportunity.
Reviews from customers helped garner popularity to the OpenTable-like app and further attracted other customers to the platform.
Given the recent impact of COVID-19 on the restaurant industry, several eateries had to close down. However, our client was able to generate revenue from the takeaway orders.

Post the successful development of the online table booking application, we saw a rise in the development request. Since the competition to enter and survive in the market is high, we launched TRooReserve, an OpenTable similar application to help businesses eliminate the launch time and get started with their business.