Guide › Grow

Your restaurant's website

This chapter covers Back office › Website: pages of your own on the web, made from templates or written for you from a description, edited beside a live preview and published when you're happy with them. It also covers what guests do on them (request a table, leave feedback) and how your team answers. Owners and managers with Online access make the pages; anyone who takes bookings answers the requests.

Before you start

• Websites are made on Sofrito Cloud. On a Sofrito Hub, the Website section says so: open your back office at sofritopos.app. Your pages stay online whatever happens to the restaurant's connection.
• Your pages live under your guest menu's address, so choose that address and publish your guest menu first: see Your menu online and table QR codes.
• Opening hours, your address and your social links on the pages come from Online and Settings, so they are the same everywhere.

#Make a page

1. In the back office, select Website, then New page.
2. Choose a template:
   • Home page: what you cook, when you're open, where to find you, and a form to request a table.
   • Events: special nights and guest menus with their dates. Past ones disappear by themselves.
   • VIP and private dining: packages for groups and celebrations, with a request form.
   • Feedback: a page where guests rate their visit. Put its QR code on the bill.
   • Takeaway ordering: a page that sends guests to order for pickup from your menu. Its Order for pickup button shows only while orders for pickup are on (see Orders for pickup).
3. Check the Address. Your home page has your restaurant's own address; other pages get a word after it, such as /vip.
4. Select Create page. The page opens in the editor. Nothing is online yet.

Templates start in all your guest languages, with words you then make your own. A section that still shows Sofrito's suggestion is marked Still shows Sofrito's suggestion: write your own.

#Describe a page and let Sofrito write it

Where AI is set up on your Sofrito Cloud, New page also offers Describe it.

1. Select New page, then Describe it.
2. Under What should the page say?, give the facts: what it's for, dates and times, prices, what's included. For example: "Fado nights every Friday in November from 9 pm, a three-course menu at €38 with a glass of wine, and a way to book."
3. Select Write the page. After a few seconds, the draft opens in the editor.

Sofrito writes only with what you gave it and your restaurant's own details: it leaves out prices and dates you didn't mention. Read the draft and change what you like before you publish. Each draft counts towards your monthly AI budget (a draft costs well under a cent).

#Edit a page

The editor has the page on the left and a preview on the right (select Preview on a phone or a small screen).

1. Under Page, write the Title and a one-sentence Description: search engines and shared links show them.
2. Under Sections, select a section to open it, and fill in its fields. The preview moves to that section.
3. To add one, select Add a section and choose it; it goes after the section you have open. A page has one booking request, one feedback form and one loyalty club form at most.
   • Loyalty club shows what members get and a form to join, confirmed by email. Guests see it only while your loyalty points are on: see Your loyalty club and campaigns.
4. To reorder, use Move up and Move down. To take one out, select Remove section; Undo brings it back for a few seconds.

Your changes are saved as a draft as you type (Draft saved). Guests see nothing of them until you publish. If someone else changed the page since you opened it, Sofrito says so rather than saving over their work: select Load the latest to go on from their version.

While a section is marked with something to fix, the draft can't be saved. If you leave anyway, Sofrito asks first; if the screen closes, the changes come back the next time you open the page in the same browser tab.

If your guest pages are in several languages, choose the language at the top of the editor. A text you leave empty in a language shows in your restaurant's own language.

Photos. Select Add photo in a section. Sofrito makes the photo smaller before sending it. Under What the photo shows, describe it for guests who can't see it.

Buttons open your own things only: your menu, the booking request, the feedback form, the club's form, ordering for pickup (shown only while you take such orders), another of your pages, a call to the restaurant, WhatsApp, directions, or a web address starting with https://. Anything else is refused, and the section is marked.

#Publish, and go back to an earlier version

1. Select Publish. The window says where guests will see the page, and warns you about sections still showing Sofrito's suggestions.
2. If you like, write a Note for the version history, such as "New summer photos".
3. Select Publish. The page is online, as version 1, 2 and so on.

To go back:

1. Select Versions. Every version you published is there, with when, who and the note.
2. Next to the one you want, select Publish again, then Tap to publish. It becomes the page online, as a new version, and your draft.

Under This page, Take off the web hides the page from guests (your draft and versions stay), and Delete page deletes it with all its versions.

#Answer booking requests

A guest who sends the booking form is told that it's a request and that you'll confirm it. The request arrives:

• on tills and in the back office, as a message: Booking request: Rui Costa, party of 4, with Review (while a Sofrito Hub serves your restaurant, it reaches the hub's tills as soon as the hub syncs, usually within moments);
• at the top of Bookings on the till and in the back office, under Booking requests from your website, and as a count on the till's Bookings button.

For each request:

1. Tap Call to ring the guest, if you want to talk first.
2. Tap Confirm to accept it. It joins the day's bookings and its covers count from then on. If you gave it a table that another booking has taken meanwhile, Sofrito says so.
3. Or tap Decline, then Tap to decline.
4. Let the guest know: the message after your answer shows their phone number.

Requests offer only the days and times your booking settings allow, and none at all while bookings are turned off: see Bookings and the waitlist.

#Read guest feedback

1. Select Website, then Read feedback.
2. You see each guest's rating, comment and, if they agreed to be contacted, how to reach them, with the average rating at the top.

New feedback is marked New the first time you open the list, and then counts as read.

#Good practice

• Start with your home page, and replace every suggestion with your own words and photos before you publish.
• Keep events up to date: past dates disappear by themselves, so add the next ones.
• Answer booking requests within the day. A guest who hasn't heard back may book elsewhere.
• Print the Feedback page's QR code on the bill, and read what guests write each week.