Double bookings happen very rarely, but when they do, it can be all the more annoying. We have four tips for you to help you avoid double bookings.
1. Update CentralPlanner regularly
Double bookings can occur, for example, if you receive guests without a reservation and send them to a table, while another user of your account has created a reservation for the same table shortly beforehand or an online reservation has been made. You should therefore briefly update the reservation book before you give the walk-in guests an apparently free seat. Or keep an eye on the area at the top left. The number of open online reservations is displayed there next to the Dashboard button without being updated.
2. Make only a part of your business available for online reservations
If you would like your guests to make online reservations, you have the option of setting up rooms and even individual tables that can be reserved. This means, for example, that you only allow five out of ten tables to be reserved online and block the online availability of the remaining five tables. You can then use these for walk-ins and switch to them if there is double occupancy.
To select tables for online reservations, go to your Account settings and click on Manage rooms & tables. Select manage tables for the respective room. To the right of the individual tables, you can change the status of each table by clicking on Set table online or Remove online status. If the table is activated for online booking, you will see a green symbol.
In your online form, select the rooms that your guests can reserve online. You can switch the rooms online or offline by ticking the box. Only the tables in the respective room that you have previously activated in the table management system are now available for online reservations.
3. Manually allocate tables
When creating your online form, you can choose between automatic and manual table allocation. If you choose Automatic table allocation, CentralPlanner assigns the tables to the reservations. If you choose Manual allocation, you must allocate the tables to the guests yourself. In this case, you will receive a booking request and the guests will only receive a reservation confirmation when you send it out.
4. Set reservation times
Determine by when a reservation for the same day must be received. It can be useful to set an online reservation cut-off time, e.g. from 6 pm. Then you can keep a better eye on reservations for the evening and walk-ins waiting in line for a table cannot spontaneously make a reservation via smartphone. This avoids chaos and allows you to concentrate on working on site instead of checking whether an online reservation has come in. Of course, you can still accept phone reservations.
You can set the deadline by which a reservation must be received in your Account settings. Under Create or update online forms, select the relevant form and click on edit form. Under each area that you have activated for online reservations, you will find the link Set moment of last reservation. Here you simply enter the time from which bookings for the current day are no longer possible.
