No-shows are a real annoyance for restaurateurs. And with good reason, they can represent a loss of income ranging from 5 to 20%*, depending on the type of restaurant. TheFork, as #1 Restaurant Booking Platform in Europe with a leading presence in Australia, has a good overview of markets’ fluctuation and customers habits.
Now, let's see how TheFork can support you fight against no-shows.
Some insights to better understand the no-shows:
Any of your clients can be a no-show, from the really busy customer to the rude customer, from the one who forgets to the one who does no dare call to cancel. Fortunately, after 2 challenging years of pandemic, restaurants are now recovering and the ones partnering with TheFork actually get a low average monthly no-show rate of 3.6%.**
TheFork loyal customers are less likely to do no-shows
🪑 Most of the time, no-shows relate to small tables (1 or 2 people)**
🙎 Only 4.7% of customers who booked through TheFork in 2022 did
a no-show**
📅 And 91% of them did not do another no-show in the next 6 months**
📉 Only 2.1% of TheFork regular customers are doing no-shows.
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How does TheFork help you fight against no-shows?
TheFork tips: play with table availability and educate your customers
In order to avoid no-shows, you can make a certain number of tables available for booking on your TheFork page, and leave the other tables for walk-ins. We also advise you to educate your customers: ask them to contact you in case of any change (cancellation, additional guests...), and tell them that after X minutes late, their table will be available to other customers.
The actions implemented by TheFork
✔️Booking confirmations
Via email and SMS sent to customers you can remind them to cancel their reservation if they can't make it.
❌ The 1 click cancellation
1 click cancellation on emails, SMS and push alerts to make it easy for customers to cancel on time.
🔄Booking reconfirmations
Booking confirmation shared via Email & push notification to reduce no-show risk.
👍 The reliability index
TheFork Manager allows you to flag your customers and leave a comment if they do a no-show or cancel last minute.
💳 The credit card imprint
When customers pay in advance or leave their banking details, they are rarely no-shows because they know that if they do not come, they will lose money. Using the credit card imprint decreases no-shows by 65%*. This is a double benefit for restaurateurs: not only does this greatly reduce your number of no-shows, but in addition, you receive compensation even if the customer does not come.
TheFork Measures are working
Restaurants partnering with TheFork receive bookings from different channels and the ones generated through TheFork and our free restaurant widgets actually get a lower no-show rate than other channels.
For instance, TheFork network has a 3.1% no-show rate compared to 4.2% for Google reserve.
TheFork has been fighting on your behalf against no-shows since 2015 in order to reduce the number and to make sure it does not affect your income. If you do not have TheFork Manager yet, click here.
Learn more about how to fight against No-Shows >>
*Source: Ge-Th.Expert - July 2018
**Source : TheFork Data, bookings TheFork 2022 All Countries
Empty tables and ever-increasing costs?
