Food for thought: Don't forget to cancel the next time you can't make your reservation

We asked in a recent LinkedIn survey: would you be happy to pay a ￡10 deposit when booking a table in a restaurant to support those who work in hospitality?

The numbers are in and the result was not as we had expected. Just 54% of people were happy to pay the ￡10 deposit at the time of booking, and 42% of people voted to say they would not pay. The additional 4% answered that they would be happy to pay slightly more. Poll here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6691990962907959296/.

Despite numerous articles and comments online leaning towards the idea of enforcing the deposit, our findings tell us something a little different. Looking at the situation impartially, there must be plenty of individual reasons that people hold for not wanting to pay and I would hope that those people wouldn't intend to 'no-show' after booking somewhere to eat.

Recent articles have told that some people choose to cancel without the courtesy of notifying the venue. Perhaps they felt uncomfortable committing due to the current environment and distancing regulations on the day. It could be that ‘yet to be’ diners feel under pressure to cough up for something that they haven’t yet experienced. Maybe they had booked a restaurant to accompany their pre-pandemic holiday that they were later disallowed. Or maybe they weren’t feeling well? There could be several reasons as to why someone didn’t get a chance to show up nor cancel the reservation, which perhaps in turn make people unwilling to pay. Allegra Benitah discusses further reasons for people's reluctance to front the small deposit: https://bit.ly/3h9xxnO

On the other hand, we should ask the question: what does that ￡10 really mean to the hospitality community? It means commitment, customer loyalty, and covering a small portion of potential business margin lost. As restaurants begin to emerge and reopen amidst the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, people booking tables without showing up incurs no cost to the customer but a huge cost to the business, threatening restaurants, venues, and the livelihoods of everyone working for them. ‘No-shows’ become worse when considering the new government guidelines insist that restaurants allow a certain amount of space per cover, inevitably allowing for less covers in a restaurant with restricted space. To learn more about the COVID related government restrictions and guidelines for restaurants read here: https://bit.ly/3awmSRD

UK Chef Adam Handling had some interesting points to make recently speaking on the topic of ‘no shows’ amid reopening his Michelin star restaurant a couple of weeks back. Adam is delighted to open his doors again to the public at The Frog in Covent Garden (https://www.adamhandling.co.uk/), but has had to cut his capacity restaurant covers from 70 to 45 according to new social distancing rules, reducing revenue potential by up to 36%. In consideration of still having to look after his staff and keep the restaurant profitable, he has decided to increase his ‘non-refundable deposit’ policy, which was in place pre-pandemic, when dining at The Frog. Adam uses the deposit policy to ensure a level of commitment in the hopes that more reserved seats will be filled, and, at the very least, a portion of his costs will be covered in the case of a no show. He further mentions that an additional benefit to restaurant owners is the policy’s potential to increase minimum spend; he believes diners may feel inclined to order more if a significant portion of the bill has already been paid before dining.  https://bit.ly/2Qd2Hit