7 restaurants · anonymous case · 2026
Seven restaurants. One group. Three Employees.
This is how HIRO works in a group of seven restaurants with three brands on Instagram. Its name stays private; what its Employees do doesn't.
- restaurants
- 7
- WhatsApp number
- 1
- Instagram profiles
- 3
- Employees at work
- 3
Guests and reservations
Hostess
Talks with your guests and books their reservations.
The challenge
Seven restaurants and a single WhatsApp number. Each guest writes to a different restaurant, and each one has its own menu, hours and rules.
What we did
A single WhatsApp Business number for all seven restaurants: Hostess books, changes and cancels reservations at any of them.
We imported the group's guest base into HIRO Platform. Hostess identifies each guest by their WhatsApp number and serves them in a personal, proactive way, with what the group knows about them: how they usually book and their preferred table.
The group sets the tone and personality: always formal, and Hostess introduces itself as a digital assistant, with a name of its own.
It knows the group's activities, such as events, the weekly menu and experiences, and proactively tells guests about them when they book on a day with one or show interest in them.
We worked on guest consent and got the templates Hostess uses approved by Meta: with the guest's permission, Hostess reminds them of their booking or tells them about an activity. It's an option the group switches on, because Meta charges for each template message.
A Cabify integration: a verified guest, according to their tier in the group's loyalty program, books their ride when they make the reservation. It was built for this group and Hostess now offers it to any restaurant with a Cabify Business account.
Clear limits and escalation: whatever Hostess isn't authorized to answer goes to the restaurant's team and leaves an alert in HIRO Platform.
The result
Seven restaurants served from a single WhatsApp number, in the group's voice.
For leadership
What Hostess means for the business.
Figures from a group of seven restaurants with Hostess on WhatsApp: 152 days of real conversations, projected to a year.
- Chief executive · CEO
- 1,040conversations with guests a year, on WhatsApp190 reservations created by Hostess and 570 guests a year.
- Operations · COO
- 53%of conversations arrive outside office hoursWeekends, holidays and weekday evenings. That is about 285 h of guest-service work a year, counting the cost of interrupting other work.
- Finance · CFO
- €36,000a year in reservations created outside office hours53% of the reservations Hostess creates. Across all reservations, €69,000 a year, at an average ticket of €120.
How we calculate it
- Source: 433 real guest conversations with Hostess on WhatsApp, in a group of seven restaurants, over 152 days. Internal tests excluded. Each yearly figure is the period's figure multiplied by 365/152.
- Office hours: Monday to Friday, 8:00 to 18:00. Everything else, weekends and national holidays included, counts as outside office hours.
- Amount: guests in the reservations Hostess created (3.07 per reservation) times an average ticket of €120 given by the group. These are reservations created, not revenue attributed to HIRO: it does not deduct cancellations, no-shows or reservations that would have come through another channel.
- Hours: the time a person would take to read the guests' messages (238 words per minute) and type on a phone the replies Hostess wrote (36.2 words per minute), multiplied by 3 for the cost of leaving another task and coming back to it. Lookups in the reservation system are not counted. It is an estimate, not a measurement.
- Rounded figures. They describe one period, not a forecast for another restaurant.
Studies behind it
- Palin et al. · Aalto University y University of Cambridge, MobileHCI 2019Mean typing speed on a phone: 36.2 words per minute (37,370 people).
- Marc Brysbaert · Ghent University, Journal of Memory and Language 2019Mean silent reading speed: 238 words per minute (meta-analysis of 190 studies).
- Gloria Mark · University of California, IrvineAfter an interruption it takes 23 minutes on average to return to the task, with other tasks in between.
- Rubinstein, Meyer & Evans · University of Michigan, Journal of Experimental Psychology 2001Switching tasks costs time, more so the more complex the task.
- Sophie Leroy · University of Washington, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 2009When switching tasks, part of the attention stays on the previous one and the next one suffers.
Instagram messages
Community
Handles your restaurant's Instagram messages.
The challenge
One person on the team handled the group's three Instagram profiles, and messages peaked on weekends, when nobody was there to answer.
What we did
Community handles the three profiles directly through Meta's official API, with no middleman.
It replaced the tool the group was paying for: €60 a month less in subscriptions.
It books from the message, just like Hostess: it checks availability and creates the booking.
It replies to stories that tag the group with 25 lines of its own, which the group updates whenever it likes from HIRO Platform.
A panel in HIRO Platform brings together the comments from all three accounts, so the team decides how to answer each one.
The result
Three Instagram profiles looked after 24/7, weekends included, without adding to the team's workload.
For leadership
What Community means for the business.
Figures from a group of seven restaurants with Community on three Instagram profiles: 111 days of real conversations, projected to a year.
- Chief executive · CEO
- 2,520conversations with guests a year, across three Instagram profilesCommunity replies in 94% of them: 3,210 replies a year.
- Operations · COO
- 67%of guest messages arrive outside office hoursMostly at night and at weekends. That is about 110 h of guest-service work a year, counting the cost of interrupting other work.
- Finance · CFO
- 400business opportunities spotted a year190 commercial proposals, 180 collaborations and 30 job applications. And €720 a year less in tools.
How we calculate it
- Source: 765 real guest conversations with Community on 3 Instagram profiles of a group of seven restaurants, over 111 days. Each yearly figure is the period's figure multiplied by 365/111.
- Office hours: Monday to Friday, 8:00 to 18:00. Everything else, weekends and national holidays included, counts as outside office hours.
- Opportunities: those Community spotted in the messages, by type; the team sees them in its HIRO Platform list. Tools: the subscription Community replaced, €60 a month according to the group.
- Hours: the time a person would take to read the guests' messages (238 words per minute) and type on a phone the replies Community wrote (36.2 words per minute), multiplied by 3 for the cost of leaving another task and coming back to it. It is an estimate, not a measurement.
- Rounded figures. They describe one period, not a forecast for another restaurant.
Studies behind it
- Palin et al. · Aalto University y University of Cambridge, MobileHCI 2019Mean typing speed on a phone: 36.2 words per minute (37,370 people).
- Marc Brysbaert · Ghent University, Journal of Memory and Language 2019Mean silent reading speed: 238 words per minute (meta-analysis of 190 studies).
- Gloria Mark · University of California, IrvineAfter an interruption it takes 23 minutes on average to return to the task, with other tasks in between.
- Rubinstein, Meyer & Evans · University of Michigan, Journal of Experimental Psychology 2001Switching tasks costs time, more so the more complex the task.
- Sophie Leroy · University of Washington, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 2009When switching tasks, part of the attention stays on the previous one and the next one suffers.
Feedback and complaints
Reputation
Puts your guests' serious complaints in a person's hands.
The challenge
Guest ratings arrive every day, nine on average and up to sixteen in a single day, and the negative ones got lost among all the others.
What we did
It sorts every rating into promoters and detractors.
Every day it sends the team a summary of the detractors, with the guest's details and the comment on their booking.
The result
The team starts the day knowing which guest to call.
For leadership
What Reputation means for the business.
Figures from a group of seven restaurants with Reputation: 50 days of real guest ratings, projected to a year.
- Satisfaction
- 71%of guests who rate their visit are promoters14% are passives and 16% detractors. Reputation reads and sorts about 3,340 ratings a year.
- Loyalty
- 280guests a year book again after ratingWith a median of 7 days to the next booking. And 28% of those who rate were already regulars.
- Complaint handling
- 100%of detractors reach your team with their bookingAbout 520 a year, with restaurant, date and party size, in the daily summary. A median of 16 hours from when the rating arrives.
How we calculate it
- Source: 457 real guest ratings from the satisfaction surveys of a group of seven restaurants, over 50 days. Each yearly figure is the period's figure multiplied by 365/50.
- Satisfaction: each survey has up to five 1–5 scores (food, service, ambience, cleanliness and ease) and the lowest one counts. 4 to 5, promoter; 3, passive; 1 to 2, detractor. It is not NPS.
- Loyalty: rated guests with a later, non-cancelled booking in the group's system. It shows they come back, not that they come back because of Reputation. Regulars: those who already had bookings before their first rating.
- Complaint handling: detractors with their booking linked, and hours from when Reputation receives the rating to the daily summary that takes it to the team.
- Rounded figures. They describe one period, not a forecast for another restaurant.
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