PAROGON GROUP USHERS IN SOME NEW TECH

THERE ARE A FEW CHANGES TAKING PLACE WITHIN PAROGON WHEN IT COMES TO TECHNOLOGY, WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF A NEW TILL SYSTEM, THE ABILITY TO NOW TAKE ORDERS ON AN I-PAD RATHER THAN THE OLD SCHOOL PEN AND PAPER, AND A BRAND NEW RESERVATION SYSTEM FROM ONE OF THE MARKET LEADERS IN THIS FIELD, SEVEN ROOMS. WE CAUGHT UP WITH BEN ALLISON, PAROGON’S PROJECT’S MANAGER ABOUT THEIR NEW ONLINE RESERVATION SYSTEM.

“Although it is essentially a great experience in our restaurants that our guests are after, the first point of contact with them occurs when they are making their booking.

With the rise in guests booking online we wanted to make sure this was as slick as possible whilst also offering more than just simply being able to book a table. We had a clear idea of what we wanted from our new online reservations system and what features were important to us, as well as how we could enhance the experience for our guests.”

After looking at a number of different providers, Seven Rooms came out on top. It still provides some of the features that were available before, but there are also new features that’s guest will be able to use for the first time.

“Being able to maintain the feature where you can see availability in our other restaurants was essential. With our restaurants being fairly close together it’s great that if you can’t get into the venue you want, there is another great Parogon experience waiting for you just down the road. Our new reservation system also allows us to show guests other areas available within our venues, that were previously unavailable, such as our bar tables if the restaurant is at capacity, and this is only one of the new features”

The new features that Ben is talking about include the ability to add tags to your booking allowing you to make the venue aware in advance of any special occasion you are celebrating or if you have any allergens or dietary requirements. The venue will then be able to see this before you even arrive.

“It’s simple things like this that do enhance a customer’s experience and we can even go a step further by allowing people to order wine or a bottle of fizz at the point of booking which will be on the table when they arrive.”

One of the features that Ben is most excited about is the ‘waiting list’ functionality which will be put to great use at their new venue Willow at Trentham Gardens”

“We think that Willow is going to be a really popular venue so to be able to put your name on a waiting list and then go off and look around the shops or gardens until your text message comes through to say your table is ready is a great feature.”

Ben made one final point, one that he thinks is probably as important as anything else.

“It’s great to have all these extra features for our guests but I think one of the most important features of the reservation system, that I am not sure all of our guest realise, is that it is a live system and the availability they look at is exactly the same as the availability we look at.

We know that by keeping our teams on the floor and not answering phones or replying to messages we are able to maintain our high standards. By allowing the maximum availability online we can make sure our guests can reserve what they are after in as quick a time as possible, without the need to reach out directly. Sometimes our guests will message us asking if we have availability for a certain day or time but I would urge them to book online because in the time it has taken to message us they could have booked their table”

It would seem there a lot of great things going on in Parogon with Ben hinting towards some other exciting advancements in technology just around the corner that will enhance the guest experience even further.