WhatsApp for restaurants: reservations, delivery questions and repeat diners
Endelir gives a restaurant one WhatsApp number for table reservation requests, hours and delivery questions, and order updates from your own system — and campaigns that bring opted-in diners back. Diners already write to restaurants on WhatsApp — asking whether Friday is free, whether you deliver to their area, what time the kitchen closes. Endelir puts those messages into one inbox your whole team can answer, collects what a reservation needs, and keeps the confirmation, the reminder and the follow-up on the same thread.
The busiest hour is when the phone matters most and nobody can reach it
A restaurant's messages arrive in the worst possible pattern: nothing for three hours, then forty at once, exactly when the floor is full. They land on a handset behind the till, and the manager who has it is carrying plates. Bookings get taken verbally, written on a scrap of paper, and remembered wrong.
The rest leaks away quietly. Someone asks about the address at seven and gets an answer at eleven. A table for six drops to four and nobody tells the host. The people who came last month and enjoyed it never hear about the new menu, because the only record of them is a chat on a phone that has since been replaced.
One number for the floor, the kitchen and the people who booked
Endelir connects your restaurant's number to the WhatsApp Business Platform and puts every conversation into a shared inbox. The host, the manager and whoever handles deliveries each sign in as themselves, so a booking is not trapped on one person's phone and a conversation has a visible owner before two people answer it.
The routine questions stop reaching a person at all. Keyword replies send your hours, your address, your delivery area and the menu as a PDF, in seconds, at midnight or mid-service. A chat flow collects the date, the time, how many are coming and which branch, and writes each answer onto the contact record. What Endelir will not do is decide whether that table is free — it holds no book and no table plan, so the host confirms against the real one.
How a diner's message moves through it
- 1 They write to you From a Click-to-WhatsApp ad, the QR code on the table, the button on your site, a delivery flyer, or the number they already saved after last time.
- 2 The routine answers go straight back Hours, address, parking, delivery area and the menu as a PDF are handled by keyword replies, in text you wrote yourself.
- 3 A reservation request is collected A flow asks the date, the time, the number of people and which branch, and saves each answer against the contact.
- 4 Your book decides The request arrives in the inbox complete. The host checks the real reservation book — Endelir does not know which tables are free — and confirms on the thread.
- 5 The reminder goes out before service A wait step sends the time, the address and the party size the afternoon before, while there is still time to fill a cancellation.
- 6 Order and collection updates follow Where your ordering or POS system can call Endelir's API, accepted, being prepared, ready and out for delivery are sent as they happen.
- 7 Afterwards, you stay in touch A short feedback question the next day, and — for diners who opted in — a message when the new menu or the festival booking opens.
What this looks like in practice
A restaurant with two branches took bookings on a phone at the front desk. On a Saturday it rang out, and the same three questions kept arriving: are you open, where exactly are you, do you deliver to this area.
Now those three answer themselves, with the menu attached as a PDF. Anything about a table runs through a flow that asks the date, the time, the covers and the branch, so the request reaches the shared inbox already complete and the host only has to look at the book and say yes or offer another time. The afternoon before, a reminder goes out with the time and the address. When a party of six becomes four, the reply lands on the same thread, the host changes the book, and the kitchen plans for four.
What happens when the diner replies
Works across food businesses
What to know before you set it up
While a diner is writing to you, you can answer freely — there is a service window for exactly that. Starting a conversation yourself, or answering after that window has closed, uses a message template Meta has approved in advance. A confirmation or a reminder carrying only the facts of a real booking sits comfortably in the utility category. "Your table for four on Friday at eight is confirmed" and "come back this month and save on wine" are not the same message: the second is marketing, it needs a marketing template, and it goes only to people who have opted in. Endelir records that consent and refuses a marketing campaign to a contact who has not given it, which is a guard rail rather than an obstacle.
Two limits are worth knowing before you plan around them. Endelir holds no calendar and no table plan, so it cannot see that Friday at eight has gone — availability comes from your book or your reservation system, and the confirmation should follow the booking being made there. And there is no menu catalogue and no cart: an order is agreed in the conversation and entered in your own ordering system, and any payment runs on your own payment link. Where that system can call Endelir's API, the status updates go out on their own; where it cannot, a person sends them.
What to measure
- Reservation requests received, and how many became confirmed bookings
- How long a message waits for its first reply during service
- How many questions were answered without a person
- Confirmations and reminders sent
- Changes and cancellations handled on the thread
- Bookings where nobody arrived
- Diners who booked or ordered more than once
- Feedback answers collected after a visit
Related
Questions people ask
Can customers book a table through WhatsApp?
They can request one, and a chat flow collects everything the request needs — the date, the time, how many people and which branch — writing each answer onto the contact record so it reaches your inbox complete instead of scattered through a chat. What Endelir does not do is decide whether that table is free. It holds no calendar and no table plan. Your host checks the real book and confirms in the same conversation. Nothing in Endelir prevents a double booking, because your book stays the only record of what is free. Once the booking exists on your side, the confirmation and the reminder go out on the same thread.
Can it answer questions about hours, location and the delivery area on its own?
Yes. Keyword replies send your opening hours, your address, parking directions, the delivery area and the menu as a PDF, in seconds, at any hour. The text is yours: you write each answer, so nothing is generated and nothing is guessed. Anything the keywords do not cover lands in the shared inbox for a person, and a diner who asks a second, more specific question is answered by a human rather than left in a loop. Keep the replies short, and update them the day your hours or your delivery area change.
Can we answer allergen questions automatically?
No, and you should not want to. Allergen and food-safety information changes with the supplier, the batch and the day's specials, and a keyword reply written three months ago will happily repeat something that is no longer true. Endelir sends only text you wrote; it does not generate answers about ingredients. Set these questions up to reach a person who can check with the kitchen. If it helps, use a keyword reply that says a member of the team will confirm, so the diner knows the question was received while someone finds the real answer.
Can customers order food in the chat?
The conversation is where the order is agreed, not where it is processed. There is no menu catalogue and no cart inside Endelir. In practice a flow collects what you need — the items, the collection or delivery address, the time — or your team takes the order in the conversation, and it is then entered in your own ordering system or POS. Where that system can call Endelir's API, the updates travel the other way: accepted, being prepared, ready for collection, out for delivery, each sent to the same thread as it happens. Where it cannot, a person sends them from the inbox.
Can we take payment for an order or a deposit?
You can send your own payment link into the conversation — for a large-party deposit or a festival pre-order, for example. Endelir does not collect the money and is not told when it arrives, so it cannot mark an order paid on its own. Your payment provider confirms the payment, your system records it, and your team or your system updates the booking from there. Never treat a link that has been sent as a deposit that has been received — that is how a table gets held for a party that never intended to come.
How do we tell diners about a new menu or a festival offer?
As a campaign to a contact group, using a marketing template Meta has approved, sent only to people who have opted in to hear from you. Endelir records consent and refuses to send a marketing campaign to a contact who has not given it, so the guard rail is in the software rather than in somebody's memory. You can group contacts — regulars, one branch, people who ordered for a past festival — and schedule the send for an hour that suits them. Do not buy a list of numbers. Collect opt-in where the diner already is: the QR code on the table, the booking flow, the receipt.
Do we need a separate number for this?
Usually, yes. Once a number is connected to the WhatsApp Business Platform it can no longer be used in the ordinary WhatsApp or WhatsApp Business app on a handset, which matters if that phone at the front desk is also how your suppliers reach you. Take a fresh number for the customer-facing line, print it on the menu, the table card and the delivery box, and leave the old handset to the staff. If the number on your signage is the one you want to keep, connect that one and move internal chatter to another.
Keep reservations, orders and customer questions in the conversation they already use.
Connect your restaurant's number and put the floor, the kitchen and the delivery desk on one inbox. We set the number up with you on a call and go through the questions your flow should ask.
14 days free. No credit card. We call you to set the number up.