GUIDE
The definitive guide to every touchpoint that turns guests into raving fans
You know the relationship you have with guests is your restaurant’s most valuable asset. That’s why you treat each one like a VIP from the minute they come in until they walk out the door.
Here’s the thing about connecting with guests: a lot of it happens outside the restaurant. The relationship you have starts long before and ends long after their meal.
Restaurants need to know how to get discovered, delight guests during their meal, stay connected between visits, and keep guests coming back. That’s the guest journey in a nutshell.
This guide breaks down every step of the guest journey so you can strengthen your connection with guests at every step along the way.
The journey starts sooner than you might think (before someone even makes a reservation) and continues long after guests settle the check. Thankfully, there are more tools available to keep guests engaged all along the way than ever.
And when you’ve finished learning from the guide, you’ll get a workbook to walk you through designing a one-of-a-kind guest journey blueprint that reflects your unique restaurant.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to:
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With OpenTable, you get access to a network of millions and only pay for seated diners, never for no-shows or cancellations.
Offer waitlist in-house or online, and easily manage the door with wait quote suggestions and table-ready texting.
Maximize seatings and streamline service with smart table assignments and server section management.
24/7 bookability for guests through your digital properties, OpenTable, and our 600+ affiliate partners.
Custom tailored for your restaurant, robust inventory settings help you maximize your books and control the flow of your dining room.
Snag last-minute bookings and avoid double or overbooking with reservation inventory that is always up-to-date and available.
Individual, customizable tool for restaurants to manage their presence on OpenTable, enabling diners to book and learn vital information (location, menu, photos) about your restaurant.
Individual guest profiles with tagged diner preferences and notes.
Gain visibility for your restaurant with digital advertising in front of our diner network of millions.
Aggregate, manage and analyze your reviews in one place across the most popular review sites and custom post-dining surveys.
Make custom surveys available to your guests and get direct feedback about their experience to take action on with your team.
Offer, manage, and sell a full range of customized dining experiences, like tastings, classes, and special menus, all in one place.
Accept online orders and pay at the table as well as for takeout and delivery.
Connect your POS with OpenTable so you can keep track of revenue, get order insights, and enable auto-table statusing to speed up turn times and seat more guests.
Trigger automated emails based on guest visit preferences and measure your ROI with campaign performance tracking.
Identify and recognize guests according to their behavior and preferences, from average spend to most ordered items.
Automatically generate robust, individual guest profiles to better understand preferences and meet their needs.
Get an objective, holistic view of each server’s overall performance in terms feedback, cover, and check averages.
Aggregate, manage and analyze your reviews across the most popular review sites in one place and create custom post-dining surveys.
Get in touch and stay in touch with guests about their visit from one central place the whole team can consult.