The trade's terms explained the way you'd explain them to a new colleague: two minutes out loud, one real example, no theory. When a term deserves a full guide, the link is there.
A no-show is a customer with a confirmed booking who doesn't turn up, without letting you know. The term comes from the airline world and is now the standard way to describe a no-notice absence in restaurants, salons and practices.
A deposit is a sum handed over at booking as a guarantee of commitment: whoever cancels without a good reason loses it, whoever shows up sees it deducted from the bill. Unlike a prepayment, which is just an advance, a deposit is meant to cover the damage of the seat left empty.
The WhatsApp Business API — today called the WhatsApp Business Platform — is WhatsApp's programmatic interface: it lets a software send and receive messages on your behalf, read the customer's request, answer automatically and write to your own management system. It's what automated booking systems use.
An AI receptionist is a system that does the first round of a front desk's work: it answers customer messages on WhatsApp, Telegram or the website, checks the real diary, offers only free slots and records the booking. Unlike a simple chatbot, it acts on systems, not just in words.
A prepayment is a sum paid in advance for the service, to be deducted from the final bill. In restaurants it's used for groups and events: the customer pays €10 per head when booking and sees it come off the bill at the end of the night. Unlike a deposit, it isn't a penalty but a true advance.
A waiting list is the list of customers who, finding everything booked, leave their contact details to be told if a seat frees up. It works as an ordered queue: the first to ask is the first to be called, and whoever doesn't answer within a few minutes yields to the next.
An automatic reminder is a message — on WhatsApp, SMS or email — that your management system sends on its own before the appointment, usually the day before, asking the customer to confirm the booking. It exists to cut no-shows: those who reply turn the reminder into a confirmation, those who don't flag a possible gap while there's still time to fill it.
Cancellation with a code is cancelling a booking through a personal link or code received at confirmation, with no phone calls and no messages to compose. The customer opens the link, confirms, and the slot immediately shows as free again, in time to be reassigned.
Online booking is the customer making the reservation on their own, on the business's website or through a widget, with no phone calls or messages: they pick day, time and covers among genuinely free slots and get instant confirmation. The phone stays for the special cases, no longer as the only channel.
A booking widget is the small panel — often a “Book” button — that a business embeds in its website and that lets the customer reserve a table without leaving the page. It's connected to the real diary: it shows only free slots and writes the booking straight into the calendar.
WhatsApp Business is Meta's free messaging app for small businesses: on top of regular WhatsApp it adds automatic greeting and away messages, a product catalogue, saved quick replies and labels to organise chats. It's designed for those who answer by hand, in person.
A chatbot is a program that converses with people via messages, text or voice: it answers questions, guides through branching paths, and consults documents and websites to give up-to-date answers. Unlike an agent, though, it stops at words: it informs and answers, but takes no action on diaries, payments or systems.
An AI agent is a system that doesn't just answer: it acts. It reads the customer's request, consults the tools it's connected to — diary, price lists, payments — and performs the operation: it offers genuinely free slots and, confirmation received, writes the booking into the calendar and activates the reminder.
A virtual receptionist is a service that filters the business's first contact: it answers calls and messages on your behalf, books appointments into the diary, sends reminders and handles cancellations. It's the evolved version of the answering machine: it doesn't just take a number, it closes the operation.
Overbooking is accepting more bookings than there are seats available. It can be a deliberate choice — counting on last-minute cancellations, as airlines do — or a mistake: a double-booked table, an out-of-date diary, covers counted wrong.
A time slot is the unit of time in which the diary sells the service: a bookable interval with a defined start and end, like a salon's 15 minutes or a dinner's 90. Availability becomes measurable: every booking occupies one or more slots, not “roughly an hour”.
A booking platform is a website or app that connects customers with restaurants and keeps a commission on every cover booked through it: the customer chooses among the availability the venues have loaded, and the platform banks its margin — often around €2 per cover — before the customer even walks in.
Booking commissions are the fee a platform keeps for every cover booked through it: a flat amount, often around €2 per cover, or a percentage of the bill. They're charged on the completed booking, regardless of how much the customer spends at dinner.
A digital diary is the shared electronic calendar a business runs its appointments and bookings with: instead of the paper diary, every commitment is written once, visible to everyone, updated in real time and accessible from any device. Every change reflects everywhere instantly.
A table map is the graphic representation of the dining room inside the management system: every table is an object with position, size, seats and features — combinable with another, fit for high chairs, outdoor or not. Availability is decided by looking at the plan, not at the cover count alone.
