Restaurant booking confirmation emails: what to do when a customer cannot find theirs
By Steve Evans, founder of Table Harmony and restaurant owner in Alicante.
Published
A customer makes a restaurant reservation but cannot find a confirmation email. They may be unsure whether the booking went through and contact the restaurant—or try to book again.
A missing email does not necessarily mean the booking failed. The address may have been mistyped, the message may be in a spam folder, or the booking may still be waiting for the restaurant to accept a request.
A few simple checks can help your team resolve the situation.
First, check the booking in your system
Before asking the customer to make another booking, look for their existing reservation.
Search using the name, date and, if available, phone number or email address. Check the number of guests and the booking status too.
If you find a matching booking, explain its status. If the customer submitted a request, make clear whether it has been accepted or is still waiting for a decision.
This first check can prevent duplicate bookings and unnecessary worry.
Check the email address
A small typing error can stop a confirmation reaching the customer. Look for a missing letter, an extra space or a mistake in the email provider’s address.
Read the address back to the customer and correct it if necessary. Then follow your system’s process for sending or resending the appropriate booking information.
For phone bookings, make sure you have an email address before expecting a confirmation to arrive. If the customer has not provided one, agree how you will confirm the reservation.
Ask the customer to check spam and other folders
A confirmation can sometimes land in spam, junk or another filtered folder. Suggest searching their inbox for the restaurant’s name or the subject of the message.
If the email is there, the customer can mark it as not spam. However, the team should still check the booking itself rather than relying on the customer finding the message.
Know the difference between a request and a confirmation
Not every online booking is confirmed immediately.
With a booking request, the restaurant reviews the request and decides whether to accept it. With automatic confirmation, an eligible booking can be confirmed immediately.
Make sure your website and booking messages explain which process applies. When answering a customer, check the actual status instead of assuming that submitting a request means the table is confirmed.
Read our article on booking requests and automatic confirmations for more about choosing an approach.
Review the problem if it happens repeatedly
One missing email may be an isolated issue. If several customers report the same problem, keep a note of what happened:
- Was an email address recorded correctly?
- Was the booking confirmed or still pending?
- Did the customer find the message in spam?
- Are reports coming from different customers and email providers?
Use this information when contacting your booking-system provider. Avoid asking customers to share passwords or sensitive information while investigating.
Give customers a clear next step
Your booking page and confirmation messages should make it easy for customers to contact the restaurant if they are unsure about a reservation.
A short message can help:
“Can’t find your confirmation? Please check your spam folder and contact us before making another booking.”
Your team can then check the booking and reassure the customer.
Table Harmony brings online bookings and reservations entered by staff into one place, with booking emails to help keep customers informed.