The Future for Restaurant Operators: SevenRooms
The future of F&B and hospitality is a result of a tenfold process. It’s about a combination of things: technology, trends, and opportunities.
And, ultimately, it’s about the people behind them. The people with the experience, the time and the passion. Perhaps this is why the original version of this article would have appeared in a magazine themed around the Innovators. The people who see gaps in the system and find ways to fill and create new opportunities to do so, inevitably helping members of the community do better and get better.
One of these innovators happens to be SevenRooms, a guest experience and retention platform that helps hospitality operators connect data across the guest journey. With a focus on operators rather than the customers, the company works with restaurants, bars, cafes, hotel F&B and other hospitality venues, helping operators to use approved guest data to build direct relationships and deliver exceptional, personalised experiences that drive loyalty and revenue. Under the helm of founder Paul Hadida, the company has since seen 760M+ guests seated through SevenRooms, and covers reservations, waitlist and table management, online ordering, contactless order and pay, guest feedback and marketing automation. SevenRooms is currently used in more than 1000 cities worldwide, and launched in cosmopolitan Asian countries and regions like Singapore and Hong Kong in April 2022.
One such restaurant group that has worked with SevenRooms is 1-Group, a restaurant group that has worked to offer a large variety of restaurants, concepts and cuisines to the masses, including at ION Orchard, where representatives of 1-Group use SevenRooms near every day in their operations. The company had the opportunity through the pandemic to work with the company. "We're always paying attention to the innovation, the abilities and the possibilities to develop any particular aspect," says Mr Massimo Aquaro, Director Of Operations at 1-Group. The company, beforehand, were using more traditional methods to record a database, with no automation. SevenRooms, on the other hand, helped to streamline the processes, keeping track of past visits, orders of the visitors, and building customer profiles across the different brands they had, whether it be a restaurant or the bar. "One of the needs ( we needed) was to track down the behaviour of the customer through all our outlets," explains Mr Aquaro. "We were unable to do so before." This includes preferences of red wines, dietary restrictions and other aspects, starting from the day they make the reservations and then through the experience of the customers. Reviews from the customers are also something that they take note of, giving them the impetus to invite the customer down for a whole new experience should there be any bad reviews.
“SevenRooms exists to enable our operators to provide exceptional experiences for their customers. Diners fall in love with - then display loyalty to - their favourite venues,” explains Mr Hadida. “Our technology is what empowers venues to provide the exceptional experiences that build these relationships. For restaurants, a direct approach to the guest experience is best, and that’s an essential distinction. We don’t want to own the guest relationship and guest data. We want to enable our operator partners to build a direct relationship with their diners while helping them do more with less in today’s labour-challenged market.
“Our role is providing the cutting-edge technology behind-the-scenes that enables operators to focus on creating memorable moments that build deeper relationships, incentivise loyalty, and drive more revenue. As a white-label solution, SevenRooms is entirely customisable and can be tailored to suit the specific needs, brand, and persona of every business that we support. Being able to build and maintain that brand recognition and consistency is so important. The ability for a venue to retain what makes them unique - with our technology supporting behind the scenes - is something that our customers, and theirs, truly value.”
