I recently helped run a major event at a nightclub during the MLB All Star Baseball week. The party itself was a hit, and the event organizers did a great job pre-selling tickets to generate revenue before the night of the event (one of our 9 tips to throwing a good party). Yet, the lack of organization with their guestlists caused a bit of confusion at the door and ended up bottle-necking the line.
Even though a digital guestlist was used for ticket sales, it was used in tandem with three other paper guestlists that were created separately and printed out right before the event. Every time a guest walked up to the hostess to check in, (s)he was greeted with the question, “which guesltist are you on?” Naturally, the customer had no idea, which meant the hostess had to search through three different lists to find the guest and mark him/her as arrived.
Not only was this process time-consuming, but it also made their operations look unorganized. While the hostess was great at greeting guests and making them feel well taken care of, the process could have been more streamlined had they stuck with just the one, centralized list. The hostess even mentioned to me how much easier it was to work with the digital list since she could just search for the name, swipe to mark them as arrived, and be on to the next guest.
But sheer ease of use isn’t the only benefit to using a digital guestlist. Below are 3 more reasons to retire the old pen & paper guestlist and upgrade to a more powerful, technologically-driven guestlist:
1. Collect guest information
There are digital guestlist systems available that are fully integrated into all areas of your club to present important information in one central spot. This means your guestlist is filled with critical information about your guests, such as demographics, frequency of visits, average group size, and total amount owed at the door. With this type of system, you’re able to check people in and charge cover right on the spot, while also seeing in-depth insight of your guests to treat them with the experience they deserve.
2. Understand guest habits
Going a step further from the previous point, a guestlist system that’s integrated with other technology in the club is able to collect an individual guest’s habits. What type of beverages do they order? How much do they spend once inside the club? Do they only come on big event nights, Friday nights, every weekend night? These answers help to narrow in on who your guests truly are and allow you to better market to them.
3. Upsell guests
With all the provided data, you’re able to make better, more educated decisions about individual guests. This means you’re able to more easily upsell your customers to come on nights they wouldn’t originally have intended, or sell them on bottle service instead of simply attending an event. This is the type of activity that grows your club’s revenue while increasing customer experience – a win-win for all.
Pen and paper can’t provide anything to you other than simply tracking which guests have arrived. Why not go a step further and integrate a digital system into your club? It will not only increase efficiency, but will also propel stronger business decisions to keep your profits and guest experiences high.
