A day full of shopping and eating out go hand in hand, and stowed away in Verona’s ADIGEO Shopping Centre is a dining room where you can enjoy delicious Neapolitan-style cuisine after frequenting nearby outlets.
Since Don Peppe neighbours with so many retail shops, it usually fills up with shoppers eager to feast on the restaurant’s Mediterranean flavours. Being in a popular shopping mall means extra business — and members of staff work extra hard to accommodate so many guests.
Yet this has also meant that Don Peppe has scarcely had any seats leftover for further customers. Before too long, customers had to wait for long periods to secure a table, and since ADIGEO’s opening in March 2017, Don Peppe had struggled to manage swelling guest loads — especially when they once required guests to stay put in line, preventing them from frequenting the mall’s nearby wares and merchandises . . .
Figure 1. Don Peppe using Carbonara App to manage guests easily
Introducing a Virtual Queue to Handle Guests
We spoke to Don Peppe’s manager, Giovanni, about the weight of this dilemma. He told us that pre-2020, between lunch and dinner Don Peppe was serving around 500 covers a day. Then, this figure increased. Business got busier over the weekend, and Don Peppe was reaching 600+ covers daily.
Though they had their quieter periods, guest management soon became too much to handle. That’s when Carbonara App came in.
How a Virtual Queue Helped Don Peppe Manage Guests
Not so long ago Don Peppe had a traditional pen-and-paper setup in place. A staff member would take the name of a customer who wanted a seat and would then wait patiently outside. However, the problem with their pen-and-paper system was this: it demanded customers to stay dormant. There was no way out to leave or walk around the mall while waiting.
As Giovanni told us, no one likes to stand idle and wait for thirty minutes. So he was on the lookout for a service that could help his team manage Don Peppe’s waitlist efficiently — to ease the wait burden for customers.
Finding out about Carbonara App seemed like the right option to go with — especially for a busy restaurant that couldn’t afford to make extra expenses, trying its best to maintain revenue.
Using Carbonara App’s free virtual queue, managing the waitlist became much easier. Simply typing in the customer’s name and phone number proved super handy as SMS features finally permitted customers to do what they liked for the remainder of their wait.
Fewer Problems — More Customers
Since Don Peppe started using Carbonara app, their workload has become much simpler. “We had fewer things to think about,” said Giovanni, applauding Carbonara App’s intuitive interface.
And here’s the best bit: Customers can now leave their contact details with Giovanni’s team, and then walk around the mall — all without having to wait outside. Using Carbonara App’s free SMS features, customers know they will later receive a text message when the table is ready, that is when their turn has arrived.
Now people can venture around ADIGEO and enjoy themselves while they wait.
Removing the Physical Queue With Carbonara App
For Don Peppe, this made a major difference. The possibility of assigning tables for people on the virtual queue is a key feature that made service fast and efficient.
It’s a myth to think physical queues are good for your restaurant — in fact, queues deter incoming customers from ever dining out with you. Increasing restaurant efficiency with Carbonara App, Don Peppe quickly realised the poor impact of the physical queue. “Now we no longer need a person at the door to manage the waiting list,” Giovanni said. “The Carbonara App eliminated the queue.”
Virtual Queue — Guest Management Made Easy
With the old pen-and-paper system, Don Peppe had 50 people outside waiting for a table. Now, with Carbonara App, they have the same number of people in the queue — but virtually. So even customers can freely decide where to wait for their turn.
Sometimes, innovation scares us — but when a change to a restaurant’s system has a positive impact on the customer experience, we should take the chance and employ it.
Download Carbonara App and create a virtual queue for your restaurant today — simple, free, and fast.
