How hospitality operators can adapt to the new ‘rule of six’
After a recent steady rise in COVID-19 cases and an anticipated spike in the winter months, the Government announced that from Monday 14th September, any social gatherings in England over six people, will become illegal. Anyone caught breaking this, could be fined £100, rising to £3,200 for repeat offenders.
While there have been exemptions to the ‘rule of six’ such as work, team sports, schools, weddings and funerals, hospitality venues will be unable to have a single group exceeding six people, either indoors or outdoor dining. The Prime Minister also announced on Wednesday that they will be tightening the track and trace rules, making it mandatory to take all customer details in England. This means that England will now follow Northern Ireland and Scotland, where it became mandatory for venues to take details last month.
Technology in place to give consumer confidence
Whilst these new measures may have an impact on consumer trade and confidence, there is technology in place that can alleviate the concerns that you and your customers may have, including taking bookings, order and pay at table and taking customer details for track and trace purposes.
Henry Seddon, Managing Director of Access Hospitality commented, “Our reservation platform, Access Collins, already supports social distancing requirements by managing table layout, enquiries and pre-bookings and the LiveWait function ensures that numbers inside a venue are controlled, messaging guests when their table is ready rather than having to queue. Access Collins Livewait is an example of a new feature that has been further developed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and is used by customers like Yummy Pubs, amongst others, since reopening.”
Solution to capturing key information
Access Collins enables you to take contact details at the point of booking, removing the need to manually request them onsite. Further development has also gone into its existing guest list facility, record not only the contact details of the lead booker, but capture key information of everyone else in the party. This will provide an immediate solution to the request to capture key information and retain for 21 days in accordance with Government data protection guidance. Within this technology, operators can hold guest data securely, and easily run as a report based on certain sittings, should it be necessary to connect with NHS Test and Trace later.
The Government advice on keeping customers and visitors safe highlighted a range of other guidelines to minimise the risk of transmission, with technology already providing solutions for many of these. The responsibility for considerations such as reconfiguring tables, controlling queues effectively, taking advance bookings, pre-order, order and pay at table and scheduling shift patterns appropriately can all be managed by technology to help protect customers and staff.
While there is no clear indication of how long these measures will be in place for, or if the other parts of the UK will follow a similar line, it is to be expected that this may last well up to and possibly exceed the festive period. Amidst the recent announcements, Access Hospitality has compiled a report, based on survey findings and recommendations, for operators to prepare for the festive season, in an online guide ‘The Twelve Weeks to Christmas’ which is available as a free download.
