Engage and delight your guests even before they arrive
In today's ever-evolving restaurant landscape, providing a seamless and memorable guest experience is more important than ever. One way to achieve this is through pre-arrival engagement. By initiating a connection with your guests right from the outset of their customer journey, you'll have the opportunity to empower them through information, inspire exploration of your offerings and promotions, and ultimately drive positive outcomes for your restaurant.
Leverage on Oddle’s unified platform to delight your guests. After a guest makes a reservation, email and SMS notifications lead them to your restaurant's Virtual Lounge. Here, they can not only view their reservation details but also explore various engaging content and crucial information. From menus to promotions, campaigns, and special offers, guests can immerse themselves in the experience you've crafted for them.
In this article, we show you how to enable this feature and also share some tips for maximising customer engagement.
To experience pre-arrival engagement for yourself, try making a reservation on this demo reservations page.
This feature requires that you have the Reservations sales channel and a Virtual Lounge setup.
1. How to enable Pre-arrival Engagement for Reservations
Enabling Pre-arrival Engagement on the Merchant Admin
In the Merchant Admin, Navigate to Engage > Virtual Lounge
Look for the “Direct reservation guests to your Virtual Lounge” card and click “Enable Now”
Confirm your action by clicking “Enable Now” in the modal that appears
Enabling SMS Notifications for Reservations
We highly recommend enabling SMS notifications to maximise customer engagement. To enable SMS notifications for your customers:
Head to the Host App
Navigate to Settings > Notifications
Enable the toggle for “SMS” under the “For Online Reservations” section
What your customers will see
When this feature is enabled, all reservations related notifications sent by email (and SMS if enabled) will contain links to your Virtual Lounge. For emails, clicking on buttons such as the “View Reservation Details” will open your Virtual Lounge. For SMSes, a short link will be included at the end of every message.
When opening these links, your Virtual Lounge will display a “Reservation Details Card” at the top of the page. Customers can still manage their reservation by clicking on the “Manage Reservation” link on the card. All of your existing Virtual Lounge content will appear below the card.
2. Tips to maximise Pre-arrival Engagements
To get the most out of pre-arrival engagements, we recommend implementing some of the ideas outlined below on your Virtual Lounge.
Include important information by using Links on your Virtual Lounge to allow customers to browse:
Your menus
FAQ
Parking & location Information
Your website
Include any ongoing promotions or educate customers on your offering with Engagement Cards as they are visually striking. Examples could include:
Happy Hour promotions
Set Promotions
Wine Pairing Options
Special Events or Happenings such as a Live Band
Best Selling dishes
Leverage Redeemables to increase table spend by allowing guest to claim offers before they arrive. You can offer a redeemable when customers complete a sign up form on your Virtual Lounge. Examples include:
Complimentary dishes with a minimum spend
Large group special offers
If you are running many promotions or have different menus for different services, you can ensure that relevant information reaches the right audience on your Virtual Lounge by configuring your content’s display settings. For example you could:
Display different menus for weekdays and weekends by configuring the “Show this link on Selected Days and Times?” setting. Guests who make reservations for weekdays will only see your weekday menu.
Display store specific promotions for different stores by configuring the “Show this card only for Selected Stores?” setting. Guest will only see content relevant to the store they made a reservation at.