BONNIE IS NOW AVAILABLE ON WHATSAPP
The Seafood Bar has grown from a single fish shop in Amsterdam, founded by Fons de Visscher in 1984, into a restaurant group with locations in Amsterdam, Utrecht, and London.
The Seafood Bar started in 1984 as a fish shop run by Fons de Visscher. It’s since grown into a restaurant group with locations in Amsterdam, Utrecht, and London, serving thousands of guests a day without losing the quality standard it was built on.
That growth brought a problem most restaurant groups eventually hit: the phone. Across all three cities, the Seafood Bar was fielding around 200 calls a day, handled by a centralised guest-service desk staffed up to 12 hours daily. Even with a dedicated team on it, roughly 20% of those calls, 30 to 40 a day, went unanswered. At an average reservation value of €150, every missed call was a specific, calculable loss, not an abstract one.
How it all came together
Bonnie was brought in alongside the existing guest-service desk rather than instead of it.
Bonnie is integrated with Formitable for reservations and MICE-Operations for events. When a call needs a person, she connects it to the guest-service team or the right restaurant directly. After each call, Bonnie sends a WhatsApp follow-up with a confirmation and any relevant details, so the guest has something to refer back to.
Bonnie answers around the clock, including outside the guest-service desk’s operating hours, so a call at 11pm gets the same response as one at midday.
In their own words
Onboarding was quick, and adjustments to how Bonnie handled specific situations were often made within minutes rather than days. For a group running three cities off one centralised desk, that responsiveness mattered as much as the automation itself.
“I highly recommend Bonnie to other restaurants,” says Frank Bosveld, Manager of the guest-service desk.
"Many do not realise how many reservations, and how much revenue, they lose due to missed calls. It's also frustrating for guests when they can't reach the restaurant, for instance to let us know they're running late. Bonnie solves that efficiently."
Frank Bosveld
Guest-Service Desk Manager | The Seafood Bar
