3 Ways to Boost Sales Using a Venue Management Platform
The right venue management software can help transform the way in which nightclubs and bars are operated. They offer powerful tools that make it easy to manage every aspect of the night – events, reservations, VIP tables, staff, and promoters – serving as a vital tool for simplifying day-to-day operations, tracking data, improving guest satisfaction, and, perhaps most importantly, boosting revenue.
Here are TablelistPro's three ways of using a venue management platform to lift sales.
1) Embed a booking widget on your website.
Scenario: A potential customer visits your venue's website looking to book a VIP table, but they only find a form or general contact email that prompts them to reach out to request a reservation. The customer takes the time to fill this out, submits it, and then has to wait for someone on your staff to contact them back, giving them plenty of time to keep browsing other venues. Their request opens up a series of back-and-forth correspondences with your staff. Where will my table be located? What is included in the minimum? Who is the DJ? Can I bring a cake? What time should we get there?
By embedding a widget on your own website, you are able to avoid this situation entirely while converting it into a sales machine. A widget is a small snippet of code that venue management platforms such as TablelistPro automatically generate to power ticket sales, VIP table sales, reservation requests, guest lists, event lists, and calendars. The pricing, quantities, and descriptions are all controlled by you. For visitors, the booking process is seamless and stays entirely within your website, meaning they will not be redirected elsewhere, and you will not risk losing them in the process. Once a sale is made, the data instantly syncs back into the app in real-time, keeping all displayed inventory up-to-date. This booking information also allows you to build a database of clients that can help improve your future marketing initiatives. In the long run, your staff will end up saving time because widgets decrease the amount of back-and-forth with customers and eliminate any data entry. Widgets, overall, take just a few minutes to implement, require very low maintenance, and can make a big impact on sales. In fact, venues can report up to an additional 30% in revenue after implementing one on their website.
2) Use payment links.
Scenario: A potential customer calls your venue at 8:30am on a Monday morning to inquire about making a reservation for a bachelorette party that is three months away. Naturally, no one answers the phone, so they leave a message and have to for a callback. You then return their call, answer all of their questions, and take down the details for their VIP table.
What do you do next to secure the reservation? You can ask them to read their credit card over the phone and scribble it down on a piece of paper, or add it into the notes section on their reservation for everyone to see; you can manually email over an attached Word document or PDF file of a credit card authorization form that the guest has to print, fill out, sign, and send back to you; you can ask them to text or email you an actual photocopy of their credit card and ID; or you can select none of these choices, leaving a high probability that the guest might not even show up and providing you with no way of enforcing a cancellation fee or re-selling the table to someone else.
There are a number of problems with each of these outdated methods. First and foremost, taking a credit card over the phone or on email is not PCI compliant. It leaves your client's card and data exposed, which poses a number of risks to the security and protection of their personal information. This is also a manual, time-consuming, inefficient process. If you are not collecting a credit card to confirm a reservation, you have no guarantee that the client won't cancel or "no-show" – and you will have no recourse to make up for those lost sales.
Venue management platforms, like TablelistPro, offer a solution to this in the form of payment links. Upon entering a reservation within the app, you are given the option to create a payment link to send to your client that requests a deposit, a full pre-payment, or a credit card to be held securely on file. You may text or email this link to your guests, after which they are able to review the booking detail, safely enter their payment information, review all of the terms and conditions so you are fully protected, and complete their reservation. Instantly, your staff can get notified that this person has confirmed, and all of the client and reservation data is synched into your venue management app. Fast, easy to use, and transparent for both your staff and customers, payment links have proven to reduce credit card fraud by 99.33 and reduce "no-shows" by 99.1%.
3) Use sales tracking links.
Scenario: You have a big event coming up at your venue, you want your promoters to drive as much traffic to it as possible, and you want it done as quickly as possible. You email and text everyone you know the image of the event flyer, asking them to post it on their social networking sites and share it with friends. But how do you actually know if it is working? How do you know who is sending you the most traffic to your venue?
With sales tracking links, a feature provided by TablelistPro and other venue management platforms, you can. All it takes it creating your event within the app, adding in your ticket and table pricing, and then – with just the click of a button – blasting an email to all of the promoters, affiliates, staff, and concierge in your database. This email consists of the event's details, along with a unique tracking link that each person can use to share with their contacts. If a client makes a booking after clicking on the link, or even if they just make a request for a table, you will know exactly where that sale came from.
TablelistPro is a real-time online reservation, ticketing, and venue management platform based out of the U.S. Trusted by top hospitality groups, nightclubs, bars, and events, the service offers simple, fast, and reliable tools to help grow sales, streamline operations, improve guest services, easily track data, and much more. TablelistPro is known for its unique features including booking widgets, payment links, and sales tracking links, while also receiving praise for providing impeccable customer service and rapid response time to its clients. Starting at just $199 per month, TablelistPro is the most cost-efficient platform on the market and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee to ensure complete satisfaction. Visit tablelistpro.com to request a free demo, see its powerful features in action, and discover how your venue can begin earning more money.
Get in touch: Tablelist Inc
www.tablelistpro.com
kyla@tablelist.com (Kyla Moore)
Get in touch: Tablelist Inc
www.tablelistpro.com
kyla@tablelist.com (Kyla Moore)
