No-shows cost the industry billions every year. Now, businesses are turning the tables on flaky customers by taking deposits or charging unexplained absentees
Customer no-shows are a huge problem for restaurants. Running at 5% to 20% per service, they cost the industry up to £16bn a year, according to the booking platform ResDiary. But have such booking sites – others include OpenTable and Bookatable – encouraged this rude, potentially ruinous behaviour?
Tim Hayward, the Financial Times’ restaurant critic, describes a situation where, instead of booking by phone and making a personal connection with a restaurant (increasingly, restaurants will not answer the phone, he complains), diners are now nudged towards pushy, faceless platforms that alienate customers and erode the responsibility they once felt towards their dinner plans: “Customers have changed their attitude, but can anyone blame them?”
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