SUPERB, the Danish scaleup with a track record in the Nordics for revolutionising how restaurants of all sizes engage with customers, increase profitability, and limit the scourge of ‘no shows’, has announced its UK launch, with an initial focus on restaurants in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and across Scotland (prior to a roll-out in England and Wales).
Since 2017, Superb has helped Scandinavian restaurants streamline their operations and boost profitability: liberating owners and front of house staff from a reliance on multiple, complex legacy systems for handling bookings. Superb’s GXM (Guest Experience Management) software combines reservations, point of sale, and payments in one place. Returning customers can make up to 80% of revenue, but traditional restaurant booking methods – whether paper and pen or computer-based – have left most venues in the dark about whether a diner is a first-time visitor or veteran. Superb unlocks data in order to help build relationships with guests through a personalised experience e.g. staff now knowing a returning guest’s drink and food preferences (or allergies). Superb also offers unique tools to reduce the likelihood of customer ‘no shows’: removing a major profit-eroding aspect of a restaurant’s life (according to a September 2021 survey, an estimated one in seven UK restaurant bookings failed to turn up since venues reopened after lockdown costing pubs and restaurants £17.6bn a year).
One of the first Scottish restaurants to embrace Superb is The Gannet (www.thegannetgla.com – Scottish Restaurant of the Year 2016/17) in Finnieston, Glasgow. Peter McKenna, its Managing Director and Chef, comments:“We’re always looking for new ways to improve the experience for our guests. Seeing how restaurants in Scandinavia were able to personalise each visit, and how staff were able to recognise regular diners, is how I discovered Superb. Ultimately, having everything together in one simple platform not only makes things easier for us but also makes the experience better for guests.” Thanks to Superb, The Gannet has seen no shows drop from 15% of bookings to 0.1%.
Additional early Superb Scottish adopters include Perthshire’s own Glenturret Lalique (www.theglenturret.com/restaurant), a restaurant in the heart of Scotland’s oldest working distillery that was recently awarded one of Michelin’s coveted stars.
Superb’s pan-continental customer base includes leading European restaurants Hisa Franko in Slovenia, Restaurant AT in Paris, and Maaemo in Oslo. Restaurants using Superb have reported increases of 18% in revenue and 20% in seated guests. Music to the ears of staff is that Superb saves 15 hours per week by automating what was formerly manual work. One Superb user reported a 90% drop in no shows – down from 18% to 0.8%. Superb customers in their native Denmark, home to number one and two restaurants in the world (noma and Geranium), include Restaurant Barr, Brace, Sushi Anaba, Iluka, and the global food capital’s most exciting new opening, Jatak.
“Scotland has a long and proud history of culinary prowess and world-leading hospitality. Launching here offers a fantastic opportunity for Superb to work with some of Europe’s best and most creative restaurants,” says Zaedo Musa, CEO & founder of Superb. “For too long, the hospitality industry has been reliant on sub-par and underperforming technology. Superb is peerless in the service we offer, which is essential to the industry as we enter a new era, one in which restaurateurs now, more than ever, need reliable and powerful technology to enable them to deliver an unrivalled guest experience. Ultimately, helping restaurants, and those in the hospitality sector, get back to business is our priority. Superb was born out of the realisation on the part of some of the most loved restaurants in Scandinavia that using multiple systems wasn’t sufficient. We are proud to bring this tried-and-tested model to Scotland.”
Livingston-born Paul Duffy has been appointed as UK Head Of Sales and will be responsible for developing Superb’s portfolio of Scottish customers and coordinating a future roll-out across the rest of the UK. The Scottish launch includes an offer for restaurants to use Superb’s GXM Pro features for a heavily reduced introductory rate of 50% off per year, for the first 2 years, which equates to £199 per month.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the UK has lost over 10% of its restaurants and suffered significant financial losses. Recently, extended restrictions due to the Omicron variant have particularly impacted Scottish businesses, with total losses of £1bn in trade being reported by the Night Time Industries Association. By making its technology available to restaurants across Scotland, and in major cities such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, Superb aims to help all restaurant owners in the region rebound from the damaging effects of the pandemic. In addition to helping existing venues to once again thrive, Superb also hopes to enable new restaurants and eateries to succeed, and continue to showcase the unique qualities of Scottish cuisine, service and dining.
