Hey, I'm Shaun from Open Pantry Co and this is the Prep list, your Monday hit of hospitality insights to start the week sharper.

Each week we cover one trend, one tool, one smart move from a venue and one question to take to your team this week.

Today we're talking about something that's creeping into the industry faster than most people realize.

AI powered phone answering.

If you've ever lost bookings because no one's picked up the phone during a busy service, or you've had your front of house constantly pulled away from guests in the room, this one's for you.

The trend to watch booking platforms like SevenRooms, OpenTable and NowBookIt are quietly rolling out AI tools that answer calls for you and do it with the same information you give if you had the time.

They're taking real time responses to things like what time you open?

Do you have a table for four tonight?

Can I bring my dog?

Or do you have gluten free options?

And they don't just take a message.

These tools can confirm bookings, send links to menus and even upsell, all without your staff picking up the phone.

One Adelaide venue told me that since switching this on, they save five hours a week of front of house time.

That's not just a wage saving, that's five hours back for service quality training or simply reducing the stress level in the room.

The tool to test for this week if you want to try this, a great starting point is now BookIt's AI phone assistant.

It's called Sadie and here's why it works.

You preload your answers to FOQs so you control the voice and tone.

It integrates with your booking system so guests can confirm or cancel without human intervention.

It's active 24, 7, meaning you capture late night booking requests or early morning function inquiries without needing a person on shift.

Seven rooms and OpenTable have similar features at the moment and they're definitely worth trialing.

But whichever platform you use, just make sure you understand it in full first.

Because not every tool suits every single venue, the goal isn't just tech for sake of tech, it's using automation to protect your team's time for higher value tasks.

The operator move for the week, one restaurant group I know switched to an online first booking strategy.

Calls go through to AI first and only urgent or complex inquiries get a human callback.

They trained one manager per shift to check voicemails twice daily.

Call back those VIPs that you need a bit more information or for those unusual requests and log any gaps in the AI's responses so they can improve the script every time.

The result was no more missed calls during service, no front of house juggling three things at once, and a noticeable lift in guest experience because they weren't constantly interrupted.

Finally, the team question for the week.

This week, ask your team what's one repetitive guest question we answer every single day and how could we automate?

Could be the phone, email, Instagram DMs.

So that's episode four of the Prep List.

If you've tested an AI booking tool or automated phone answering DM us and let us know your results, we'd love to share them.

And if you've loved this episode, make sure you flick it to someone in the industry as well.

That's how we grow this podcast.

All the information about how to connect with us at OpenPantry Co are in the show notes of this podcast.

It's a really simple linktree link so you can connect with us and let us know about your venue.

We'd love to help.

See you next Monday for the Prep list.