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In mid-October of 2023, a Juicy Seafood franchise location in Baton Rouge began implementing Front’s waitlist systems,
Front Waitlist, in their restaurant’s operations. Over the course of nearly 5 months, Front Waitlist was able to not only help The Juicy Seafood maintain a more organized, streamlined and efficient front of house, but also retain more customers and build a more responsive customer base.
Prior to using Front systems, the Baton Rouge location did not employ any waitlist technology, with hosts mainly using manual or handwritten waitlists during peak hours. Not only does this cause confusion for hosts and customers, these methods can cause congestion, long wait times, disorganized seating procedures and ultimately, dissatisfied customers. Front Waitlist was able to alleviate the burden on their front of house staff by utilizing a customer facing waitlist kiosk for waiting customers to input their party information, thus reducing mistakes caused by human error.
In addition, Front Waitlist’s back office,
Front Tab, allows hosts to send notifications to waiting customers, adjust waitlist times, and seat them according to the appropriate section all from one APP. Over the last 5 months, the Baton Rouge location of The Juicy Seafood saw not only a steady increase of customers using the Front Waitlist system during peak dining hours, but also the total amount of orders and more importantly, the retention of customer contact information.
The total number of diners had increased by 272% from October of 2023 to February of 2024 (5 month period) and the total order volume had increased by 273% for the same period. The average purchase frequency per month is 1.06 and has been steadily increasing with each month. With Front Waitlist, Juicy Seafood is able to streamline seating to where more customers are being served in a timely manner. Waiting customers are also returning to the restaurant faster with notifications being sent via SMS text message instead of hollering for numbers or names, people may or may not hear or understand. These are all improvements that positively affect customer retention and satisfaction with service in the restaurant.
Front Waitlist also retains customer information which is vital in increasing customer retention as well as building a customer base for marketing purposes. When customers sign up for the waitlist via Front Waitlist, they must enter a valid phone number and name to receive updates and notifications about their table. This information is consolidated in the back office and accessible via the customer tab. This information helps merchants like those from Juicy Seafood plan out marketing campaigns via text message. It also allows customers to feel more connected to the restaurants they are patronizing, ultimately driving up sales, loyalty and overall purchase frequency.
While Front Waitlist isn’t for every food establishment, full service restaurants like Juicy Seafood have seen incredible success while using Front Waitlist to better take care of their customers as well as drive up sales and revenue.