How Caterers Can Benefit from Using Tripleseat

Understandably there are certain aspects of private dining events that have temporarily changed due to COVID-19. Beyond size and setup, the physical location of some events has been moved from inside the restaurant to inside the home.

Now, instead of hosting the event, your restaurant is catering an off-premise affair. Whether or not catering is new to your venue, you might be asking yourself how event management software can benefit your catering service. It just so happens that Tripleseat is just as beneficial to managing your off-premise catering as it is to events taking place in your private dining rooms.

Catering-specific lead form

Tripleseat’s embeddable lead form is completely customizable, and you can have several for each location. This means that even though you already have one set up for your private events business, you can easily create a second lead form for the same location that is only used for catering orders. You are able to embed the catering form just as easily as you embed your regular lead form. Add it to your website’s catering page, catering specific marketing emails, as well as your catering Facebook page or Instagram bio. You can link to the lead form’s URL anywhere you are promoting your catering services.

Tripleseat+ Direct

Tripleseat recently launched a new direct booking platform that will revolutionize the way restaurants, hotels, and unique venues grow their on and off-premise event business. Tripleseat+ Direct enables restaurants and hotels to offer on-premise and off-premise events and catering to be booked by their clients, directly from their website, social media platforms, or EventUp.com.

Catering event documents

Tripleseat’s event documents are also completely customizable. You can create separate sets of documents for all of your different event types. With regular private events, you’ll most likely need the standard proposal, BEO, invoice, contract, and kitchen sheet. But, catering events have their own specific needs when it comes to documents. Depending on the type of catering you offer you’ll need all of the standards plus possibly a catering bid proposal, delivery run sheet, or staffing sheet.

Of course, your catering business most likely has different terms and conditions depending on the type of event. With Tripleseat’s document templates you are able to input and store as many different versions of your terms and conditions as you need and choose the correct one with a few clicks. And don’t worry, the Tripleseat team is always available to help you build out your documents, templates, and merge fields to accommodate all of your event types.

Contactless everything

In our new normal, customers appreciate contactless planning more than ever before, and especially when their event is taking place off-premise. With Tripleseat you can plan a catering event without ever meeting the host in person. Once the catering lead is submitted through your Tripleseat lead form, your lead auto-response email will be sent out within seconds. This feature allows you to respond to the lead first, almost guaranteeing you get the business.

Next, you can communicate with the client through Tripleseat’s discussion emails. Your pre-built email templates and merge fields make it easy for you to respond quickly without having to type out every detail of every catering event.

Once the documents have been created, you can share them through the Guest Portal. If your client wants to make any changes, you can do so from any device. The edits you make will automatically be updated on your guest’s side so they can see the changes being made almost simultaneously. Once the client is happy with what you’ve given them, they can sign the contract virtually, and even make payments using our credit card integrations.

The only step left is delivering the food! Tripleseat’s contactless sales cycle makes booking, adjusting, and finalizing catering orders simple and efficient.

EventUp

Yes, it’s true that most event planners who search listings on EventUp are looking for a place to hold their event, but that doesn’t mean you can’t promote your catering services as well. When you create your listings on both of our booking networks, you can add caterer as an option under your venue type so planners know you offer off-premise catering services in addition to hosting live events.

For even more promotion, add video links, reviews from Facebook, Google, and Yelp along with floor plan links and PDF files. Brag about how amazing your catering menu is and include photos of past events and the items you offer. EventUp is just another way Tripleseat helps promote all aspects of your business while bringing in leads without charging fees.

Tripleseat+ Direct makes it easy for guests to purchase from your venue

Tripleseat+ Direct enables restaurants and hotels to offer on-premise and off-premise events and catering to be booked by their clients, directly from their website, social media platforms, or EventUp. Tripleseat+ Direct provides your customers with a simple online booking solution where they can book, plan, and pay for in-house private events, off-site catering, pickup, and delivery with zero friction.

If your venue isn’t using Tripleseat+ Direct feature yet, head on over to our Tripleseat+ Direct page for more information or to book a demo.