Sadie x Cafe del Mar Sydney

Missed Calls, Missed Opportunities

With a large venue, and a single person in charge of manning the phone, Cafe del Mar knew that they were missing opportunities. Calls would come in when the responsible person wasn’t on shift, and for a venue hosting a lot of events, a single missed call could represent a huge missed opportunity.  

Cafe del Mar function and events manager, Sam Woodcock, explains: 

“At Café del Mar, I am the primary person responsible for answering the phone, and having a single person who can field enquiries had become a problem on weekends and outside of office hours, when I’m not here.  

What we ended up with was a busy host, trying to do everything at once, who also may not be experienced in fielding event enquiries. When a single call could be an event worth $60,000, it becomes really important to make sure every call is answered. 

And then there are more general calls that flood in over the weekend. I could come in Monday to a heap of missed calls and messages, which is hard to get through at the best of times, let alone towards the end of the year when we’re also running a lot of different events.” 

Boosting Bookings with Sadie

As the person responsible for handling the phone at Café del Mar, Sam has felt the impact of Sadie acutely, saying she has made an incredible difference to their operations.  

Since implementing Sadie, Sam says the venue is capturing more bookings than ever before, including high-value functions. The feedback from customers has been positive so far, with many shocked at just how lifelike Sadie sounds. Sam describes the response from customers: 

“For the most part, customers are just happy that they can call whenever suits them, and modify bookings, or have their questions answered. Sadie is very attentive, always gets the details right, and we consistently hear that patrons are amazed by how lifelike she sounds.” 

For Café del Mar customers engaging with Sadie, the result is that they can modify bookings, or submit enquiries on their terms, without waiting days for a return call. 

Sadie's Impact on Operations

For Sam, the volume of missed calls represented not just missed opportunities, but friction for customers, and additional pressure on the team.  

He explains the impact of Sadie: 

“Between the weekend and out-of-office hours, we were missing a lot of calls, and it was so stressful to have to try to listen to hours of voicemails and get back to everyone. A lot of the time, people had called on the weekend about their bookings that day, so by the time I’m listening to the message, it’s too late; nobody has been able to help them. 

For the weekend hosts, who aren’t necessarily trained to answer event enquiries, the stress was trying to find answers to customer questions, whilst also trying to run the floor, all while the venue is packed.” 

The move to a Voice AI solution was the obvious one for Sam, who says:

“It would take weeks to train all our staff how to answer event enquiries, and retrain every time we had staff turnover. Even then, that wouldn’t help us when no staff are in the venue, so Voice AI was the only solution that made sense to ensure full coverage.” 

Once the decision was made to move forward with a Voice AI solution, the team at Café del Mar started by looking at solutions integrated with OpenTable. The depth of the integration between Sadie and OpenTable was a driving factor for Café del Mar, who wanted the Voice AI to be able to handle booking enquiries and modifications end-to-end. 

With Sadie able to handle booking enquiries, Sam says that their operations have become far more streamlined, particularly in events.  
 

“Having Sadie handle bookings is fantastic, she’s just in the background helping me out, which gives me far more bandwidth and reduces the overwhelm. Particularly in the busy season, where we can have up to 60 events happening in a month, it really takes the pressure off me and allows me to focus on making those events a fantastic experience for customers.”  

For Café del Mar, implementing Sadie has enabled greater operational efficiency, delivering more bookings, and improved conversion on high-value function enquiries. As a support for the team, she has enabled 100% coverage on the phones, picking up the calls that staff simply can’t get to.  

To see how Sadie can support your venue, book a free demo here.