Should you take restaurant bookings through Instagram messages?
Short answer: yes, if your guests are already messaging you, and in most restaurants they are. The message arrives whether you answer it or not. The catch is that a message is only a booking if somebody reads it, replies while the guest is still interested, and puts it in the diary. In most restaurants the account sits on one person’s phone, the notifications get buried under likes, and the request that came in at ten past eleven on a Friday night is read on Monday.
Why do so many bookings now start in a message?
Because that is where the guest already is. They find you on Instagram, they look at the pictures of the food, they read a couple of reviews, and then they ask the question in the app they are holding. Few people stop to make a phone call to ask whether you have a table for six on Saturday.
The messages are rarely just “table for four”. They are the questions that decide whether the guest books at all:
- Do you have anything left on Saturday, and how late do you serve?
- Is there anything for someone who does not eat dairy?
- Can we bring a cake, and do you charge for it?
- Do you take a table of nine, or is that a private room?
- Is it pushchair friendly?
Every one of those can stop a booking before it starts.
What usually goes wrong
- One person has the login. Usually the person who set the account up, who is now doing something else.
- The real ones hide. Genuine enquiries sit behind the message requests folder alongside spam and suppliers.
- Nobody knows what was answered. Two people reply to the same guest, or neither does.
- The answer never reaches the diary. A table gets promised in a message and nobody writes it down, so it gets given away.
- The reply comes too late. Twelve hours is a long time when someone is choosing where to eat tonight.
What does a good reply in a message look like?
Short, warm, and it moves the guest forward.
- Answer the actual question first, in one line.
- Say what you have got, with a time you can actually give them.
- Take the booking there and then, into the same diary the phone bookings go into.
- Confirm it back in writing, in the same thread, so the guest has it.
- Pass anything serious to a person, and say so plainly.
Instagram enquiries, three ways
| Approach | Answered within minutes, at any hour | Knows tonight’s availability | Booking lands in the diary | Hands over allergies and complaints |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whoever picks up the phone next | No | Yes | Yes | Depends who answers |
| The account on someone’s phone | Sometimes | Only if they check | Often not | Depends |
| An always-on agent (Sorino) | Yes | Yes, from your diary | Yes | Yes, by rule |
How does an always-on agent handle a message?
It reads the message, answers in your restaurant’s voice, checks the availability in the booking system you already use, and takes the booking. Then it confirms it in the thread and writes it up so your team can see what was said.
The same agent is answering the phone, the website chat and the inbox, from the same record, so a guest gets the same answer whichever way they ask. Update the menu once and the agent uses the new information everywhere.
See how social messages are handled end to end: Social DMs.
Will it sound like us?
It uses your words. The tone comes from your own copy and the way your team already answers, and you sign off how it speaks before it goes anywhere near a guest. If a guest asks something it should not be answering, it says a person will come back to them rather than trying to be clever.
What will it not do?
- Allergies. It repeats your written allergen information and hands anything uncertain to your team. It never says a dish is safe. There is a whole page on this: Can AI answer your allergen questions safely?
- Complaints. A guest who is upset goes to a person, quickly.
- Comps and goodwill. It does not give anything away.
- Big groups and private hire. Gathered, written up, handed over.
How quickly can it go live?
About six weeks. The first fortnight loads your menus, your booking rules and your voice, and sets what gets handed to a person. Then the phone and website chat go live, then email and social messages are added, with reporting on so you can see what guests asked. It runs at £299 a month.
Frequently asked
Does it post on our account? No. It answers the messages people send you. It does not publish anything.
What about comments under a post? Those are handled the same way as a message where the platform allows it, and anything it should not answer in public is taken to a private reply or a person.
Will guests know? You decide how it introduces itself, and it never pretends to be a named member of your team.
Does it work with our booking system? It sits alongside the booking platform you already run and takes the booking into it, so there is one diary, not two.
The short version
- Guests already book by message. The only question is whether anyone answers.
- Most restaurants lose these to one login, a buried notification and a reply that comes twelve hours late.
- A good reply answers the question, takes the booking, and lands it in the diary.
- One agent answers the phone, the chat, the inbox and the messages from the same record.
- Allergies, complaints, comps and big groups go to a person.
Get started
Answer the message before they book somewhere else.
Build an agent on your own restaurant, send it the sort of message your guests send at eleven at night, and see what comes back.