Don’t Let Private Parties Annoy Your Regular Customers
So you own a small business (bar, restaurant, bookshop, mercantile, cafe, etc.) and you offer private party bookings. Congratulations! That’s a great way to make extra income. On the other hand, if your spot is too small to host a private event without remaining open to the public, it can be annoying for your other customers. It’s a little less annoying, though, when the business has given plenty of heads up.
As a quick personal note, on too many occasions to count, my friends and I have planned a dinner or night out in Des Moines, only for that place to share on their Instagram about an hour before we were to meet (and a half hour before closing), that the spot we’d planned on going to would be closed early for a private party. I know we’re not alone.
What You Can Do:
- Keep a social media post pinned every month at the top of your profile with any public and private event info. Adding a note to your story 10 minutes before you’re about to close for a private event isn’t the move.
- Have a calendar on your website. You can do this by sharing a public event calendar with a Google integration or by adding an event calendar to your website directly.
- Update your Google Business listing with special hours when a private event is closing down your business outside of its normal hours. This comes in handy when someone is Googling you ahead of time.
TL;DR
If your business hosts private events that shut down your entire business during normal business hours, give customers a bigger heads up than a few minutes or hours by sharing the info on your website, social media, and Google Business listing so other customers don’t plan a day or evening around visiting your establishment only to be left scrambling for a new plan.
That’s it. That’s the post!