With the reopening of restaurant service comes new COVID19 guidelines for ensuring a safe space for customers and staff.
Irelands guidelines have mentioned having in practice an additional 15mins added to a booking turn time to allow for staff cleaning before the next customers booking time. simpleERB can help with ensuring enough time is allocated to bookings to allow this without overlapping a customer booking and the next booking needing to wait for the table to be then cleaned after arriving.
To do this you can add a 'cleaning buffer' time to the table turn time that only your team is aware of. For example, you have a 90min default table turn time but would like an extra 10 mins to clean the table. You can set the default table turn time to 100 mins in the system while also making it clear to the customer you require the table to be vacated in 90mins.
Here are the steps to make this happen;
Firstly you need to turn off the table turn time from displaying automatically in the customer's email confirmation/reminder/online booking. (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 allocated to the booking, you can 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.
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 a table turn time notification using the customer message setting 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 the turn time allocated at that date/time.
5. To ensure your team is aware of the customer table turn time and that you have applied a ' cleaning 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 -
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 out article here on this.