RestaurantDiary™ Launches Free Compact New Booking Interface
Please remember all bookings from your website are commission free and there is no charge to use this new widget from your own website/s (unless you wish it to be customised).
no need for customer registration
With the new RestaurantDiary™ booking widget, there is no longer a need for customers to register when they make a booking. The customer simply fills in a short form including information such as name, telephone number and email address. This creates a booking experience that is simply more user-friendly and much faster than ever before.
quick and easy
The reservation process is further sped up thanks to the improved user interface and less intermediate steps. The availability of time slots is clearer with the new booking widget - the entire calendar month can now be viewed at once, and all available times on the selected day can be viewed in the same manner.
customisable – brand in your own colours with your own logo
Perhaps the greatest advantage that the new widget offers is its deep visual customisation. Your restaurant's own colour scheme, as well as its branding, font and logos can all be integrated directly into the widget, creating a completely seamless transition from your website to the booking screen. The widget itself is even able to be embedded on a web page, so the customer no longer has to leave the page to make their booking.
(Branding by RD developers is chargeable at £95 plus VAT).
direct interface with RestaurantDiary™ back office
The widget retains all of the direct interfacing with the RestaurantDiary™ back office for real-time reservation availability and booking. Promotions can be created in the back office and automatically integrated into the widget, including your own detailed descriptions and set period of validity.
automatic recognition of returning customers
If a customer has made a booking before, their email address and telephone number will already be stored within your RestaurantDiary™ customer database – the widget can provide automatic recognition of these returning customers using these existing details. Plus, because customers are assigned a unique reference number for every booking they make, they are free to cancel or edit their bookings at any time… no contacting the restaurant required.
virally build your own customer database for email or text marketing
Since all customer data is stored, another advantage of the RestaurantDiary™ booking system is in its marketing capabilities. Marketing lists can be dynamically built from the database and an associated advertising campaign created. Whether it is an email or SMS campaign, RestaurantDiary™ provides deep HTML customisation and messaging options to communicate your message in the clearest possible way.
Restaurantdiary customers can have their own branded website booking interface and can also be a part of the Livebookings Partner Network –
Livebookings Network
Restaurantdiary™ customers choosing to gain access to the Livebookings Network will have their restaurant profile shared to over 500 websites, gaining unparalleled promotional opportunities.
Online marketing and reservations management opportunities to increase for thousands of UK restaurants
24 February 2010
Through a mutually beneficial agreement, Restaurantdiary™ is to become a new system partner of Livebookings, with its award-winning system, Restaurantdiary™, offered to Livebookings’ clients as one of the ways of managing their off- and online reservations.
After successful development of a direct integration between Restaurantdiary™ and Livebookings during December 2009, and trials in January 2010, the first implementations have gone live at Villandry Brasserie and at Planet Hollywood, Haymarket.
Through this partnership, Restaurantdiary™ users can take direct advantage of Livebookings’ industry-leading online booking interface, Livebookings Direct - already used by thousands of restaurants - and will also gain access to Livebookings’ Network Partner sites, such as lastminute.com, Yell.com, 118 118 and Bookatable.com.
Olivia FitzGerald, Livebookings UK and Ireland General Manager says: “At Livebookings we’re constantly looking for opportunities to take the business forward and we see fantastic potential for growth with Restaurantdiary™. We believe that offering Restaurantdiary’s current and potential clients the option to manage their Livebookings through the system will deliver huge benefits through increased access to new diners and the ability to build their customer database, whilst Livebookings’ clients will benefit from access to one of the most sophisticated reservation management systems in the world.”
Mike Conyers, Director of Restaurantdiary.com Limited, comments: “As the number of consumers searching online for places to eat continues to increase, we’re very excited to be working with Livebookings and giving our customers access to their team of experts and network partner databases. We are equally delighted to have this opportunity to make the powerful revenue maximisation features of the Restaurantdiary™ system available to existing users of Livebookings”.
Livebookings recently announced new figures showing that online covers booked for restaurants in 2009 doubled from the previous year – a new record for the company. It meant that Livebookings booked over 4 million covers for its restaurant clients in 2009, demonstrating the power of online marketing.
Restaurantdiary™ was used in over 350 restaurants in the UK during 2009 and in over 1,000 restaurants worldwide. Restaurantdiary™ users booked 5.7 million covers with the system during the year.
-Ends-
Notes to editors:
About Livebookings
Headquartered in London, with offices in Hamburg, Stockholm and Madrid and customers in 19 countries, Livebookings is Europe’s largest online marketing and reservations service for the restaurant industry. Built for restaurateurs, by restaurateurs, the company is ranked as one of the top 30 fastest growing digital media companies in Europe, in the Guardian’s Media Tech 100 and in the SIME shortlisted ‘Mighty 36’.
Livebookings enables free real-time, online reservations on restaurant websites and helps restaurants to access customers that would otherwise be difficult to reach through a global network of partners including Time Out, lastminute.com, Ticketmaster and Yell.com.
About Restaurantdiary™
Restaurantdiary™ is an online tool that offers reservations management, marketing, customer services and table management in one unique package for restaurateurs. Inbuilt automated yield management tools help guarantee revenue optimisation for restaurant operators.
The idea was developed after restaurateur, Mike Conyers, decided to create a tool that could radically alter the way restaurants manage bookings and customers.
The benefits of the system were proven at a very early stage, when the system was tested in a live-experiment on a busy Saturday evening in a restaurant in Glasgow. Previously the best Saturday night had 166 covers, but using the profit management element of restaurantdiary™, covers were increased to 232. Since that test in 2004, restaurantdiary™ has been adopted by over 1000 restaurants around the globe, and particularly by top-end restaurants who are always busy.
Restaurantdiary customers include Sheraton, Starwood, Hilton DoubleTree, Villandry, Mosimanns, One-O-One Knightsbridge, Planet Hollywood, Boundary, Bibendum, Searcy’s, Heathcotes, Restaurant Martin Wishart and the Buzzworks, G1, Di Maggio’s and Montpelier Group of restaurants.
Restaurantdiary™ is currently available to restaurateurs in the UK, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Moscow and Australia - with licensees actively being sought and recruited for other regions.