Taking part in daily deals requires something of a balancing act for online and multichannel retailers. While such promotions can be an important driver of new sales, the amount of response they can generate can be overwhelming.
Now a new way has been found of solving that problem in the restaurant industry, where a new deals reservation platform has been launched to help restaurants deal with the high level of calls they get following promotions on services such as Groupon.
Livebookings has launched a deals reservation platform, which allows daily deal providers to funnel all their deal-buying consumers into one reservation interface.
Consumers are restricted to reserving the daily deal only and put their voucher code directly in the interface on the daily deal provider’s website.
James Robertson, managing director of Marco Pierre White’s London Steakhouse Co said: “Running Groupon deals has worked incredibly well for both of our steakhouse restaurants, getting thousands more diners though the doors.
“However, after our first campaign, we quickly discovered the logistical challenges – phones ringing off the hook and no easy way to manage the flow of customers turning up at the restaurant. For our second Groupon deal, we integrated with online reservations provider, Livebookings, and were ecstatic with the results – more than 1,700 covers booked in 24 hours!
“For restaurants running Groupon and other daily deals, this gives full control over table availability, so we ensure we sell the inventory that is earmarked for the deal customers.”
Livebookings processes more than 138 covers a minute for its restaurant clients, who can use it to post deals instantly to their own website and a network of over 300 partner websites, such as lastminute.com and Bookatable.
Andris Berzins, chief marketing officer at Livebookings, said: “Our online reservations and marketing platform powers more than one million dining reservations every month for over 8,500 restaurants.
“Our platform has always allowed restaurants to control availability to steer deals reservations to shoulder times. It is now integrated in a way that can power any restaurant’s daily deal campaign with any deal provider of their choice.”
