How to boost bookings with Reserve with Google integrations
Are you wondering if you should be adding Google Reservations for restaurants as one of your booking channels? If so, you’ve come to the right place. In this article we’re going to look at what Reserve with Google does, how it works and how you can get set up to start taking reservations through the world’s biggest search engine.
At Access, we have plenty of experience with Reserve with Google, our cloud-based reservation management system, Access Collins was the first restaurant booking system to offer customers the ability to make enquiries and take bookings through Google. Because of this experience, as well as the experience of our users, we have a strong sense for what you'll need to know to make Reserve with Google an integral part of your restaurant's success moving forward.
What is Reserve with Google?
Reserve with Google is a booking facility created by the search engine that allows customers who discover your venue on Google or Google Maps to book a table at a restaurant, an appointment at a beauty salon or any bookable activity through Google.
Customers who discover your business through the search engine don’t have to leave Google to book their desired table or appointment, they add their details in one place and these are relayed to the business. Once received, Reserve with Google then sends them an email to confirm. If your booking system usually sends automated confirmation emails, this will still happen.
Your business can take advantage of this service by ensuring your reservation software system, or app is connected to Reserve with Google. If they are, Google will simply pull in a venue’s availability from the connected booking system and show this to the potential customer searching. The restaurant can control how many tables are available and it will be updated in real time, so Google will never overbook.
In addition to taking bookings, Reserve with Google can take deposits and pre-payment at the point of booking, although it can’t take pre-orders. If you don’t want to advertise tables at your restaurant for any reason, you can deactivate your Reserve with Google functionality for any period.
How does Reserve with Google work?
When customers discover your business on Google or Google Maps, they’ll see a button saying ‘Reserve a table’ within your Google listing. On clicking the button, your customers can instantly access your availability and from there can make their boking for their desired date, time and party size.
The booking is then digitally relayed back to your booking system and entered into your diary along with your other reservations. From this point it is like any other booking, and you can communicate with your guest with any necessary pre-visit messages.
Reserve with Google reduces the number of steps it takes for the customer to complete their booking which will improve booking rates.
The benefits of Reserve with Google for your business
The main benefit of Reserve with Google is that it boosts the number of online bookings you can potentially receive for your restaurant.
While it is helpful to accept bookings through your website, it is worth remembering that most people will be searching for your restaurant by name through Google, not going directly to your URL, so you’ll catch them here and enable them to reserve a table quickly.
Other potential customers may not know of your existence (yet) and will simply be searching for a local Italian restaurant, or family-friendly pub to visit. In fact, 60% of consumers look online for menus, photos and reviews before selecting a venue according to our own Tech Shift report.
The benefits of Reserve with Google for your business are:
- Streamlines the booking process for your existing customers
- Helps capture bookings from new customers
- Makes your business more visible
- Boosts booking numbers with no additional effort
- Presents real-time availability
- Allows quick deactivation of availability
Common problems with Reserve with Google
So, is Reserve with Google a good fit for your restaurant? When you use Reserve with Google there are some features you can’t change – such as automated booking confirmation emails – which you have no control over or ability to customise. Customers are also able to edit or cancel their booking directly through Google, which will also generate an automated message from Google as well as any of your own communications sent from your own reservation system. As customers can modify their booking through Google, it’s vital you add a Google cancellation policy so that after a certain point customers must contact your restaurant directly to make changes.
Although Reserve with Google captures customer data at the point of booking, there is no option to opt in for marketing, which means that you lose the opportunity to capture marketing contact details for future use. Not enabling the Reserve with Google feature means your guests need to book through another channel with marketing opt in available. Whether this is an issue for you will depend largely on your competitors, if they are utilising Reserve with Google then you don’t want to make your booking process more difficult in comparison and therefore it is more important to secure the booking than to capture the marketing information.
In addition, Reserve with Google is not a live feed, and this means that any changes to table availability at your venue are only updated in Google once per day. If your restaurant is often booked to capacity or subject to changes at the last minute than Reserve with Google may not be for you as it can lead to issues with customer bookings.
How to integrate Access Collins with Reserve with Google
Access Collins is a third-party Reserve with Google partner, which means our clients have instant access to all the features it offers.
First, there are a few steps to take to integrate both systems and get the most out of Reserve with Google, which we’ll walk you through here.
1. Set up a Google My Business profile
For your restaurant to be able to take bookings through Reserve with Google you’ll need to create a Google My Business profile first. This will also help you be discovered on Google Search and Maps.
To set up your profile go to business.google.com and input the relevant details. You’ll need your business name and business type to start and then can add other information from there.
2. Check your bookings policy
You must offer dining auto-confirm bookings or enquiries through your Access Collins system that doesn’t require pre-order at the point of booking/enquiry in order to use Reserve with Google. It can take deposits or pre-payments, just not pre-orders.
3. Set booking types
Reserve with Google will only accept bookings made under certain dining types such as breakfast, lunch and dinner. Access Collins has Booking Type Templates to help you create these in your Google My Business Profile, so the dining types are automatically enabled with Reserve with Google.
Once you have created these dining types, you can manage your bookings more effectively if needed. For example, you might not want to keep your restaurant open for walk-ins at breakfast time but want reservations for dinner. This option gives you more control while maximising your potential at times you want bookings to flood in.
You can also turn off availability completely through your Google My Business Profile if you need to.
Are you ready to get started with Access Collins and Reserve with Google?
Reserve with Google makes it quicker and easier than ever before for your customers to make a booking in your venue directly from your search listing on Google.
In this article we have discovered how Reserve with Google can increase visibility of your restaurant and drive more bookings and the simple steps required to get started.
If you’re not yet using Reserve with Google, then get in touch with our team to find out how you can get set up in no time and start attracting more bookings to your venue.
Find out more about our Access Collins, our hospitality booking and reservations software >
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