Failing to optimize seat turnover rates can often be a significant oversight, one that could make it far more difficult for restaurants to improve their total sales.
According to GRUBBRR, seat turnover rate is the average amount of times a seat will be occupied in a restaurant during a meal period, and the rate is calculated by dividing the number of customers served in a given time period by the number of seats.
Calculating seat turnover and performing periodic reassessments to ensure that available seating is being utilized as efficiently as possible are both tasks that no business owner can afford to take lightly.
Assess Current Seating Capacity, Space and Layout
While an open and spacious layout can help to create a more stylish, comfortable, or attractive atmosphere, lacking sufficient seating can lead to long wait times and decreased sales revenue.
Likewise, while having more seating may translate into increased sales volume during peak hours, a dining environment that is too cramped or crowded could find restaurant patrons looking elsewhere for their next meal.
Assessing current seating capacity as well as both the available space and the viability of either increasing or decreasing the available seating at need should always be the first step of the process.
Devise a Tracking Strategy
Crafting the right tracking strategy is also important for businesses that are seeking ways to improve their seat turnover rate. There are a number of factors that might impact customer volume or influence dining habits and business owners who are working with outdated information could be placing themselves at a major disadvantage.
Ensuring that efforts to track and record turnover accurately reflect the habits of customers, guests, and patrons is never an issue that should be left to chance.
Detailed Information Provides Superior Insight
While calculating base turnover rates is as simple as dividing the total number of guests by the number of seats available, failing to go into greater detail could lead to many lost opportunities.
Comparing the content of each order can shed much-needed light on how menu specials or drink orders may be impacting seat turnover. Tracking turnover times for each individual table can make it easier to understand the role table placement may play in determining how long guests are likely to stay.
A more comprehensive and in-depth analysis can help to ensure that restaurant owners are able to make informed decisions needed in order to better optimize turnover rates.
Performing Periodic Reassessment
Shifting industry trends, changing customer habits and updated menu options can render current data on seat turnover obsolete far more quickly than many business owners might realize. Failing to reassess seat turnover from time to time could mean that businesses are basing decisions on information that may be all but useless.
Even the most comprehensive records detailing customer volume and turnover rates may be of little real benefit should the data it contains be too old or out of date.
Being able to accurately calculate seat turnover can be vital for decreasing customer wait times, making better use of the available space, and ensuring that restaurants are able to improve their overall sales figures and revenue.
Efforts like devising a tracking strategy, examining data in greater detail, and performing a reassessment from time to time can all help to ensure that business owners are better able to optimize seat turnover rates.
