A popular UK restaurant chain has enhanced its communications infrastructure with the integration of Tollring’s powerful Call Analytics. The chain can now optimise call handling, maintain exceptional customer service, and ensure smooth operations across its 53 restaurants. 

Seamless communication isn’t just a nice-to-have – it’s critical to delivering a great dining experience. With over 50 bustling restaurants across the UK, and high call volumes for bookings, ensuring that every customer is answered is essential. A missed call isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a lost customer, an empty table, and lost revenue. And, with restaurants operating daily from 9 AM to 11 PM, the restaurants needed a provider they could depend upon. 

The chain’s customer services manager says, “Telephone bookings remain a critical part of our operations, and every missed call means lost customers and revenue. Reliable service is essential, but we also need to make answering calls as easy as possible. Our front-of-house teams must juggle booking calls while providing great in-person service, so we needed insights into our performance. Are staffing levels right? When are peak times? Can we direct calls more efficiently?” 

A future proof system 

The restaurant chain required an advanced and future-proofed phone system and services to manage its fast-growing business.  Utilising the very latest feature-rich telephony, broadband and mobile technology, the chain has put improving customer services at the core of its operation.  

A robust telecom infrastructure was the foundation. This included broadband upgrades, where internet speeds were enhanced across all locations by collaborating with multiple providers to ensure optimal coverage. In addition, hosted phone systems were introduced, providing every restaurant with at least four phone users, including portable handsets, front desk phones, manager desk phones, and counter phones. 

To ensure every call is handled efficiently, Tollring’s Call Analytics was seamlessly integrated with the phone system. This gives real-time visibility into missed calls, peak call times, and caller wait durations – allowing the restaurants to take immediate action to improve response rates and customer satisfaction. And, as each restaurant operates as a separate location, they can understand daily call performance individually and across their group. 

The customer services manager adds, “When customers call to book at table, we can now ensure our call handling is far more efficient.   

“The analytics is extremely valuable. Our team at the head office receives a weekly report with details on any missed calls, categorised as green when 90% or more calls are answered and amber for 80-90%. Any red reports indicating that only 80% of calls were answered are given immediate attention. A future enhancement is planned to allow each restaurant’s general manager to access their own call data, enabling them to take fast proactive measures. 

“Most importantly, the customer experience has been enhanced through the increased reliability of our internal networks and an improved guest Wi-Fi. This enables customers to leave reviews during their visit. The strong Wi-Fi connectivity also guarantees a robust ordering and kitchen ticketing processes. In addition, we now have a dedicated support team that can deliver an extensive engineer network and ensuring any urgent telecom issues are addressed swiftly.” 

The call data is continuously analysed to identify areas for improvement. A key refinement was adjusting the pre-recorded message when customers called a restaurant. Initially, the recorded message prompted customers to visit the website for any booking changes, however these calls were ringing through to the restaurant before the customer had time to hang up. This led to false missed call reports. The restaurant was able to modify the message to include a five-second delay and significantly reduce incorrect missed call alerts. 

The customer services manager concludes, “With robust communications and real-time call insights, our restaurant managers now have the tools to deliver outstanding customer service. Most importantly, we can keep tables full, customers happy, and ensure that every enquiry is answered – because great service starts the moment a guest picks up the phone.”