A wake, a christening and the darts club
The function room upstairs is a steady earner when it is booked. A family rings about a wake next Friday. Someone emails about a fortieth birthday in three months. The local history society messages on Facebook about their monthly meeting. The assistant manager takes the call, says they will check and ring back, and writes the number on a pad.
The call back happens two days later. The family has booked somewhere else. The birthday party asked about a buffet and nobody knew the prices. The history society's booking was confirmed, but on the night the room was also promised to a christening because the booking was in a different diary.
Why function room bookings leak
Function enquiries arrive in every channel, to whoever happens to answer. Only one or two people can quote, because the prices, buffet options and deposit terms are in their heads or in an old document. Availability is in a paper diary, or a calendar on one person's phone.
And the enquiries that matter most are often urgent. A wake is booked within days. The family ringing round will book the first place that gives them a clear answer, and a promise to ring back is not a clear answer.
Deposits are the other weak spot. When a deposit is taken in cash at the bar or by a bank transfer that nobody matches to the booking, it is easy to forget whether it was paid, and hard to hold a date firmly for someone who has not paid while another customer is asking for it.
Where function bookings are lost
| Gap | Result |
|---|---|
| Slow reply to enquiries | Customers book elsewhere |
| Only one person can quote | Enquiries wait for the manager's day on |
| Diary in two places | Double bookings of the room |
| Deposits taken informally | No-shows with no deposit held |
| Details on scraps of paper | Wrong numbers for food, bar not ready |
Function hire also brings people into the pub who might not otherwise come, and a good event produces the next booking. A badly handled one does the opposite.
The regular bookings suffer quietly too. A club that meets upstairs every month and finds the room given away once will start looking for another venue, and you lose twelve bookings a year, plus the bar trade that came with them, over one diary mistake.
One flow from enquiry to event day
- An enquiry form on your website and linked from social pages asks for the date, type of event, numbers and food needs, and shows which dates are free.
- Phone enquiries are entered by staff in the same form, so every enquiry is in one list with its status.
- A quote is built from your packages, such as room hire, buffet options and bar arrangements, so any member of staff can give a clear answer on the spot.
- The customer receives the quote by email with a link to pay the deposit through Stripe, which holds the date once paid.
- Confirmed bookings go on one room calendar. Reminders go to the customer for final numbers and food choices before the event.
- An event sheet is produced for the day with timings, numbers, food, bar arrangements and contact, for the bar and kitchen.
Your hire terms, deposit rules and cancellation policy are yours. We put them in front of the customer in the same words every time.
The next wake enquiry
The family rings on Monday. The barman opens the form, sees Friday is free, chooses the buffet package for fifty, and emails a quote with a deposit link while they are on the phone. The family pays that afternoon. On Friday the kitchen and bar have the event sheet. Nobody else can book the room that day.
- Every enquiry in one list, from every channel
- Clear quotes from any member of staff
- Dates held only when a deposit is paid
- An event sheet everyone works from
Does your function room booking look like this?
- Enquiries are written on a pad for someone to ring back.
- Only the manager can quote for a function.
- The room has been double-booked.
- Deposits are not always taken.
- Staff find out the details of a function on the day.