How to recognise your regular guests without a notebook: what jelo.hr records about every guest and what staff do with it
In high season nobody knows the couple at table 4 is on their eighth visit. What the system records from the reservation, how it sorts guests into new, regular and VIP, and what staff see on the tablet.
A restaurant owner knows about twenty faces by heart. In July, when four waiters rotate through the shift and two of them are seasonal, nobody at the bar knows that the couple at table 4 is here for the eighth time this year and always orders the same bottle of Malvazija. The reservation notebook does not remember that, because it holds a name and a party size, not a history. This article describes what the jelo.hr system records about a guest without any manual entry, and what staff can do with it during a shift.
What is recorded about a guest by itself
Every reservation that arrives through the restaurant's website, its jelo.hr profile, or that staff enter after a phone call opens a guest profile. On every further visit the same profile is updated. It collects:
- contact details and reservation history, including visit dates;
- the number of visits, which the system counts itself;
- total spending across all visits and average spending per visit;
- notes and preferences entered by staff: nut allergy, a table away from the speakers, a birthday in August.
Based on visit count and spending, the system places every guest in one of three groups: new, regular or VIP. The owner does not make that split by hand; it is already there in the regular guests overview, with the visit count and basic preferences next to every name.
Three guest groups and what to do with them
The split is only worth anything if each group is treated differently. From the practice of restaurants that run their guests through the system:
- New guest. The goal is a second visit. The guest receives a booking confirmation and a reminder the day before, and after the visit an e-mail inviting them to leave a Google review with a direct link to your profile. Staff do not have to ask for anything at the table.
- Regular guest. The goal is to make the visit a habit. This is where the loyalty programme with a clear threshold works, for example a dessert after the fifth visit; guest and staff both see in the profile how far away it is.
- VIP guest. The goal is that they never go elsewhere. VIP guests get the things that cannot be bought: the table they like, the Saturday 8 p.m. slot when everything is full, an invitation to taste the new menu before it is announced.
What does not pay off for any group is a discount on the whole bill. It does not change the guest's behaviour, and the margin drops every time.
What staff see before the guest sits down
The data in the profile is only useful if the waiter sees it the moment the guest walks in. In the jelo.hr system, staff have a list of upcoming reservations on the tablet with the guest's name, party size, table and notes. As the 8 p.m. reservation approaches, the waiter sees that this is the guest with the allergy who likes the window table, and seats them there, without asking and without checking with the kitchen.
The Pro+ plan includes a physical tablet configured for the venue and separate staff access: employees follow reservations and tables without entering the admin area with prices and settings. How that is set up is described on the staff access page. A new reservation reaches the tablet as soon as it is received, so it does not happen that a guest arrives with a confirmation nobody on shift has seen.
When a guest stops coming
Without records, a guest who used to come every two weeks and then disappeared is only noticed when someone on staff remembers they have not been around for a while. With records, the date of the last visit is in the profile. A practical rule: once a month, open the list of VIP and regular guests and look at who has not been in for more than sixty days. Those people do not get a mass post; they get a short personal message inviting them to the seasonal menu. The list is short, so it fits into half an hour.
Who owns that list also matters. When a guest books through a portal, their data stays with the portal. Quandoo has announced it is winding down and that the service remains available up to and including 30 September 2026 (notice on quandoo.de, September 2026); restaurants that ran their guests through it for years now have to rebuild that history from scratch. The records in the jelo.hr system belong to your restaurant and your reservations.
What it costs and how to start
Guest records, the group split and rewards are part of the Pro plan at 59 € a month. Pro+ at 79 € a month adds the tablet for the venue, staff access and priority support. Activation is paid once, 99 €, and includes system setup, the website, reservation configuration and e-mail notifications. There is no fee per guest, the subscription runs for at least six months, and for the first seven days all Pro features work without a card. For comparison, Eat App's cheapest Lite plan charges 69 $ a month when paid yearly, or 99 $ monthly (restaurant.eatapp.co/pricing, September 2026).
To begin, it is enough that reservations go through the system and that staff add one note per guest whenever there is one. In three months the list of regulars will be more accurate than anyone's memory on shift. If you would like to see how the guest overview would look for your venue, get in touch via the contact page.