Taking Online Bookings For Restaurants: The Basics

More and more venues allow customers to book online - and more and more customers expect to be able to do so.

While it's pretty easy to create a simple enquiry form for bookings, it takes a little bit more time to set up online bookings that can do things like automatically manage capacity and accept customer bookings without having to manually confirm each one!

Add online booking forms to your website

The difference between a website enquiry form and a website booking form is that an enquiry form is really just a slightly different way to get an email, while a booking form is actively trying to take a specific booking.

Booking forms for venues get between 3x to 10x the amount of use than a basic online enquiry form, because modern consumers want things done easily and quickly.

After all, everyone is busy and nobody wants a long email chain and waiting period to book a table.

With BookingNinja though, you can have the best of both worlds - a booking form for simple bookings, and an enquiry form that can be used for larger groups or questions.

Is it easy to take bookings online?

Allowing customers to book online is much easier than many people think.

A basic booking form for a cafe would only take around 20 minutes to set up in BookingNinja, and once set up, it's rare you'll need to change things unless you change your opening times or tables.

Of course, you can make complex forms too, that ask many questions, or book different areas, or even booking forms that take deposits and payments.

Is is it easy to add an venue booking form to my website?

No! Our booking software comes with a free self-hosted page, which means even if you know nothing about websites, all you need to do is add the link we make to your social media, and you'll be able to take bookings instantly.

Of course, we also offer code so that you can embed your booking form into your business site as well.

How to stop no-show customers

If you're new to online bookings, no-shows might seem like a scary possibility.

In fact, there's been some research that in the past suggests that no shows are significantly higher online.

But this is only if you compare a phone booking to a booking without no show protection.

Online booking software like BookingNinja allows to reduce no shows by between 80 and 90% depending on the type of business.

Simply asking for card details up front but without taking payment - also known as card capture - can reduce no shows alone by more than two thirds, and it's really easy to set up with BookingNinja.

Setup Online Bookings Risk Free

Unlike most other booking platforms, you can jump straight onto BookingNinja and be taking online bookings for free without any sales calls, demos, or credit card details.

You can take up to 100 bookings per month with us for free. If you're new to online bookings, you probably won't that limit very soon, giving you plenty of time to test out online bookings.

Or if you're looking for booking software for a pub, bar or cafe that still has most it's business through foot traffic, you can use BookingNinja for free forever to simply offer a second option