Tripleseat Insider: Eatertainment Events Insight from a Tripleseat Expert

If you are an Eatertainment event manager or owner considering Tripleseat event management software, you may be looking for a little events insight. Today, we feature Sarah Bessler, Regional Account Manager at Tripleseat. She shares her insight of working for Pinstripes, an Italian-American Bistro with bowling and bocce, and her experience using Tripleseat’s event management platform as a Sales Training Director.

At Tripleseat, we like to say that our event software solutions are built for hospitality professionals by hospitality professionals. It all began with our CEO’s 20+ years of experience and passion for hospitality, which continues to be the foundation of Tripleseat’s core values and products. But what does that mean?

When developing features for our hospitality software, we strive to solve industry pain points. But how can someone truly understand the nuances and moments of high stress if they haven’t lived and breathed it? That’s the sentiment behind hiring team members who have past roles in restaurants, hotels, and other unique venues. They truly bring passion and a genuine understanding of the hospitality world.

Most of Tripleseat’s team have proudly and passionately had experience working in hospitality! But even more amazing, and what many don’t realize is that many of these professionals used to be Tripleseat end-users themselves! This offers a unique and insightful inside view, enabling the Tripleseat team to innovate and create impactful products. Additionally, our customers can gain valuable insights and benefits by revealing more about these event and hospitality experts.

Sarah Bessler | Pinstripes, Chicago, Illinois

Interviewer: Catarina Martins is a Tripleseat Marketing Manager. In this new blog series, she will share conversations with various team members about their past hospitality and Tripleseat event management software experiences. More interviews to come!

Interviewee: Sarah Bessler is a Tripleseat Regional Account Manager. Before working at Tripleseat, Sarah was a Sales Training Director at Pinstripes in Chicago, Illinois.

Q&A

Catarina: Hi Sarah! Can’t believe I haven’t seen you since May when we were at the National Restaurant Show in Chicago. Time seriously flies by, but thank you for taking the time to let me interview you. Without further adieu, let’s get into it. So tell me, before Tripleseat, where did you work, and what was your role?

Sarah: So before Tripleseat I was the Sales Training Director for Pinstripes.

Catarina: Pinstripes? Bowling? Oh, fun!

Sarah: Yup! So when I was there, they had 12 locations, and now they’re hoping to have 20+ locations by the end of the year, so it’s exciting growth for them. Sarah Otto also came from my team, so it’ll be interesting to hear what we both say during these interviews because she also volunteered to be part of this blog series!

Catarina: No way! That’s so funny. I can’t wait to interview her now. Alright, so how long did you work at Pinstripes?

Sarah: I worked there for four years and helped transition to Tripleseat after a not-so-optimal experience with alternative software.

Catarina: That was my next question! If you can recall, can you share what your journey was like that led Pinstripes to make the switch to Tripleseat? Consideration, evaluation, pushback, anything you can share.

Sarah: A lot of it just had to do with ROI, time management, and just fully understanding the start-to-finish sales cycle and what transparency came with it within Tripleseat. Pinstripes was really big about being able to track productivity and reporting, especially because they were planning to grow so much. So Tripleseat really sold itself. I think going into this big growth factor, they wanted to get all the sales teams utilizing the same platform, the same way, at the same time. So it was a fresh start.

I remember us onboarding with Tripleseat, and then we didn’t have the means to take all of our previous BEOs and dump them into the platform, so we made a clean-up party weekend out of it where all the sales managers came in and we had to rebook our upcoming events. But in return, you got free brunch, and we played games, and we made a weekend out of it to help bandaid that it was a lot of extra work [laughter]. But because we did that, it served as great training and practice for the team to learn how to put things in the Tripleseat platform, so the adoption process really started there.

Once that weekend took place and all of the upcoming events were already in Tripleseat, we went live [with Tripleseat platform] that Monday, and it was like a piece of cake which was awesome.

Catarina: Wow, that sounds like it was an eventful weekend but all for a great cause with a great end result! I do want to talk about what you used prior to Tripleseat. What prompted Pinstripes to want to shop around for a different event management software?

Sarah: No matter what, we had to move to a new system because the existing platform we were using was making a change to be cloud-based. This legacy platform wasn’t going to be how it was previously, the interface was totally going to change and be revamped, so it was that timing of it all. Since we were already going to be making a move, why not do something more innovative? That’s why we pulled the trigger on Tripleseat.

Catarina: Everything is about the right timing! You’ve already touched on this a little bit earlier, but while you were evaluating different event management software, was there a particular ‘aha’ moment that made Tripleseat the clear winner for you guys?

Sarah: Totally. I think that especially with unique venues or Eatertainment concepts, there’s some unique software that comes with that, such as a gaming component or the ability to integrate with SevenRooms, or eventually Pinstripes integrates with Salesforce as well, so that capability of having open APIs to customize the need-to-need basis was really helpful.

Catarina: Sounds like it all worked out for the best! Once you were already using Tripleseat, did one feature stand out as your favorite? And why?

Sarah: My favorite feature as a user of the platform was definitely calendar exporting. It made communication so easy; for example, between the chef on the line, he could look at his calendar and not even have to have a Tripleseat login and know, “Oh [expletive], we have 200 short ribs that we need for tomorrow; I better order them today,” and having that at his fingertips without having to log in was a game changer. And same with FOH; they were able to meet their staffing needs and look at setups from their phones or iPads without having to log in.

Catarina: [Laughter] I’ll be sure to remove the expletive when editing this! But, that is how someone would react. You’ve already shared some great insights.

Sarah: Oh my gosh, yes. One of the perks of having 4 locations in a condensed area is if something goes wrong (in this case, a pipe bursting), there’s shuffling that can be done with other locations to still accommodate the guests! It was for sure the camaraderie and the organization of jumping in and figuring it out that got us through unexpected emergencies like that! Having something happen to a venue and still being able to pull off parties is what hospitality is all about!

Catarina: That sounds like it was quite the day, but thankfully you and your team persevered and got it all sorted! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your stories and experiences. Excited to share it with our audience!

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