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November 10, 2013

Four Reasons to add a Reservation Genie Restaurant Booking Widget

Reason #1: Save Money
Open Table charges 25 cents per cover from reservations that originate from the restaurant’s website. They charge $1 per cover for reservations that originate from their website. And they charge $7.50 per cover for their users that book 1000 point tables. It’s not the cost of the covers that come from your website that adds up, but what Open Table does with your customer afterwards. They send them emails recruiting them to book directly through Open Table in the future where they cost more. And what’s worse, they recruit them to book 1000 point tables that cost you, or your competitor, $7.50 per cover. If you use the Open Table Widget, you’re contributing to higher invoices over time.

Reason #2: Help Build a Free Booking Community
When you add a Reservation Genie widget to your website, you’re never charged cover fees. Not when the customer books from your website or if they return to book directly through Reservation Genie in the future. By adding our booking widget, you’re supporting a model dedicated to eliminating cover fees from regular customers. Simply put, it’s your chance to help stop the Open Table monopoly.

Reason #3: Drive Repeat Business
Reservation Genie offers a tool that rewards your customers from coming back often. Why send your customers to Open Table so they can recruit them to go to visit your competitor? Our VIP Loyalty Program rewards the top 10 most frequent customers with perks for their loyalty. Unlike models like Groupon that cater to deal seekers that may never return to your business, Reservation Genie’s VIP Loyalty Program only rewards customers who come back often. You can set the perk so that it fits your brand. It’s flexible and it’s a quality worth rewarding! Restaurants that offer a compelling VIP Perk see customers coming back an average of 3X more often than those that don’t.

Reason #4: Boost Reservation Conversion Rate
Booking a reservation is the strongest commitment a customer can make towards making a purchase from your website. Just like Ecommerce models work towards optimizing conversion rates by getting more sales from their website, restaurants can optimize conversion rates by getting more reservations from their website. The idea is to convert 5% of your website viewers into reservations that eventually lead to sales. Widgets boost conversion rate. Just the site of one encourages customers to go ahead and book. Once they book a reservation, they’re less likely to get distracted and dine elsewhere.

Add your Restaurant Booking Widget Today
Adding the Reservation Genie restaurant booking widget to your website is easy. Simply visit your Settings > Website Tools > Widget Builder page. There you can enter your shape, dimensions, color combinations and create a widget like the one below. The one below is from our test account, so you can click on the fields to see what your customers will experience. When you’re satisfied with your widget style, enter your web designers email address and hit the send button. That will send them an email with instructions on adding it to your website. If you need help, we will happily add one to your website for you.

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