You might find that on busier nights such as, the weekend, your customers are staying the default table turn time you have in place which means your next customer has shown up before your team has been able to turn over the table.
In these situations you could use our current waitlist feature (see more info here) or if this is a regular occurrence you could add on a 'buffer' time that only your team is aware off. For example, on Saturdays you have 90min table turn time but would like an extra 10 mins to clean the table. You can set the simpleERB table turn time to 100 mins in the system and also make it so the customer knows you require the table to be vacated in 90mins.
Here are the steps to make this happen;
Firstly you need to turn offer the table turn time from appearing automatically in the customers email confirmation/reminder. (Don't worry, we will still be able to notify them in emails - see step 2). To do this, go to your widget settings and at the top of the page and check the "off" button for 'display tables back by'.
2. To ensure customers are aware of the real table turn time, you can still alert them in the confirmation/reminder email by adding it to the "additional booking email message" within the restaurant info setting here.
3. If you want the buffer time to be on all booking time slots, you would then add this extra time to the 'Default Table Turn Time' here in the simple settings. The table turn time will be the
If you only want this applicable to certain dates/days, you would add this in the advance setting 'Table Turn'. This time entered needs to the total time (customer turn time + buffer time). See example image below -
4. For your online widget customers, you can add as an extra notification, a customer message here to appear on the final step of the booking. This will be visible in the blue text box so customers are aware at the time of booking.
5. To ensure your team is aware of the customer table turn time and that you have applied a 'buffer time' on to this, it would also be recommended to add a permanent staff message here. This will then appear when staff are inputting a booking on a Saturday. See example below -
In our video here about overriding your default settings, we have a quick view of the Table Turn Time advance setting.
If you wish to completely turn off your table turn time, you can find out more here. You can find out more about changing your table turn time for specific time slots or dates here.
Please ensure your table turn time does not conflict with your close time, you can view our article here on this.