An office manager is organising something for thirty five people. She has a date, a budget per head and a director who wants it confirmed this week.
She emails five venues on Monday. Two reply on Thursday, one asks her to ring, one sends a brochure with no prices and one sends a figure and an availability confirmation within the hour.
Step 1: reply within the hour
Because corporate bookings go to whoever answers first with something usable. Everything else on this list matters less than this.
Step 2: publish a per head figure
For a standard arrangement, so an organiser can shortlist you before contacting anybody. Most venues publish nothing and lose the shortlist entirely.
Step 3: publish the minimum numbers and spend
For a private area and for the whole venue. Organisers need to know whether their group qualifies before enquiring.
Step 4: publish what spaces are available
Areas, capacities and whether each can be private. Organisers picture the evening and cannot from a description of atmosphere.
Step 5: publish the food options
Buffet, set menu, canapes and what each costs per head. It is half the decision and it decides the budget.
Step 6: publish the drinks arrangements
Packages, tabs and how they work, which is the ground organisers most need settled.
Step 7: explain the timings
Arrival, food service, how long the space is held and when it must be vacated. Organisers are building a schedule.
Step 8: explain the deposit and numbers deadline
What is payable, when final numbers are due and what happens if fewer attend. Corporate numbers always move.
Step 9: explain the invoicing
Whether you can invoice a company, what details are needed and payment terms. It is frequently the deciding factor and almost never mentioned.
Step 10: offer to hold a date
Provisionally, for a short period, while she gets approval. It is how a wavering enquiry becomes a booking.
Step 11: think beyond December
Summer parties, team days, leaving dos, client entertaining and monthly socials. The Christmas enquiry is the introduction to a year of bookings.
Step 12: build the relationship with the organiser
Because the same person books everything, every year, and remembers who made it easy, which is the ground in corporate lunch and business dining enquiries.
Step 13: use it to fill quiet nights
A midweek corporate booking fills an evening that generates nothing, which is the logic in event night enquiries that fill a bar on quiet evenings.
Step 13b: say what makes an evening work
Organisers are not booking a room, they are trying to give thirty people a good night and be thanked for it on Monday. Suggesting what works for that group size, what usually goes wrong and how other companies have run it turns a quote into advice and makes you the venue she rings first next year.
Step 14: capture the enquiry at any hour
Date, numbers, budget and food, so a proposal goes out immediately, which is the mechanism in an AI assistant for venue enquiries, alongside private party and venue hire questions for bars.
Getting started
Publish per head figures, minimums, spaces and invoicing terms, then capture date and numbers at any hour and reply immediately. SpideyChat for hospitality venues answers from your published pages, plans are on the pricing page, and the chatbot ROI calculator works through the numbers.