How Kaizen helps us constantly improve our booking platform
Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy, it's the way we operate on improvements and how we keep innovating
BookingNinja is always looking for ways to improve the product and the user experience. One way we do this is through Kaizen, a Japanese philosophy.
The Kaizen philosophy is all about making small, incremental changes that can have a big impact. It’s based on the idea that there is always room for improvement, no matter how good something may be.
“The message of the Kaizen strategy is that not a day should go by without some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company.” ~ Masaaki Imai
We take in hundreds of post booking feedback comments every week and we read every single one of them. We use this feedback to make sure the booking form is as customer friendly as possible. The vast majority of feedback received is overwhelmingly positive, but we're not perfect and we don't think we ever will be.
This may seem like an odd admission for a company to make, but it's rooted in the idea that if we start to believe something is at the best it can be, then we're blinding ourselves to potential.
Another advantage of us using Kaizen is that there are no jarring changes for you or your customers. You might notice a tweak here and there over time, and yet things 'feel' like you're used to. It's just a tweak here and there over the course of a year that becomes substantial improvements; all without having to retrain your staff or explain to your customers. So have you concidered using Kaizen in your resturant?
For example, if you want to improve your service times? Study a service and see what things, no matter how small, are slowing things down. No one finds moving the knife block to another surface exciting, and sure it won't revolutionalise the business - but 20 small changes like this? You might just find it these small changes can make a big difference in the kitchen, and they can help to improve your service times.
Or maybe you want to improve team happiness? Take a look at what makes your team unhappy and see if there are any small changes you can make that will have a big impact. It could be as simple as buying new aprons, providing more training or even just giving them more of a say.
No matter what you want to improve, the Kaizen philosophy can help. And BookingNinja is here to help you along the way!