What is a guest profile, and what belongs on it

A regular has been coming to the same bistro every few weeks for three years. She always asks for the corner table, drinks sparkling water, cannot eat shellfish and celebrates her anniversary there every June. The bistro's best server knows all of this. When the server leaves for another job, the knowledge leaves with her, and the next time the regular arrives, a new host seats her by the kitchen door and offers the prawn special.

What is a guest profile? In a restaurant, a guest profile is the record of what the venue knows about a guest: their name and contact details, their visits, their preferences, their allergies and anything else the team needs to look after them well. It is the record behind recognition, the thing that lets any member of the team welcome a regular the way the best server used to.

This guide covers what a guest profile is, the fields worth keeping, how the team should use them, what does not belong on a profile, guest privacy and the rules around guest data, and how to keep profiles accurate. Every venue and figure in it is an example.

A guest profile is a single record for each guest, kept by the venue, that brings together everything useful about them: who they are, how to reach them, when they have visited, what they like and what they cannot eat. It is built up visit by visit, from bookings, orders and the team's notes.

Its purpose is to help the team look after the guest. A profile that tells the host a guest is a regular, the server that they prefer still water and the kitchen that they are allergic to shellfish turns a good evening into one where the guest feels known.

Guest profiles matter because recognition is one of the strongest reasons guests return. A guest who is greeted by name, seated at their favourite table and never asked twice about their allergy feels that the venue cares about them.

Without profiles, recognition depends on individual memory, and memory leaves when people do. With them, the whole team can recognise a guest, on any shift, in any venue in a group. Our guide to guest profiles your floor team will trust covers how to make them useful on the floor.

The basic details are the guest's name, how to contact them, usually an email address and a phone number, and how they prefer to be contacted. These come from the booking and are needed to confirm bookings and to send any messages the guest has agreed to receive.

Keep the details accurate: one profile per guest, with the current email and phone number. A guest with three profiles, each with part of their history, is a guest the team cannot see clearly.

The visit history shows when the guest has visited, how often, with how many people and, often, how much they spent. It tells the team whether a guest is new, an occasional visitor or a regular, and how long it has been since their last visit.

The history is built from the bookings and the bills, not typed by hand. A profile that shows ten visits in a year tells the host something important before the guest has said a word.

Allergies and dietary needs are among the most important things a profile can hold. A guest who has told the venue about a shellfish allergy once should never have to tell it again, and the kitchen should see the allergy every time the guest books.

Record allergies clearly and separately from preferences, so they stand out. Confirm them with the guest from time to time, because allergies and diets can change.

Guest preferences are the small things that make a visit feel personal: a favourite table, a usual drink, a preferred server, a dislike of a particular ingredient, a habit of arriving early. They are worth recording when they are useful to the team and the guest would be glad they were remembered.

Our guide to guest preferences worth writing down covers which preferences help most. The test is simple: would remembering this make the guest's next visit better?

Occasions are worth recording too: a birthday, an anniversary celebrated at the venue every year, a family tradition. A note that a guest celebrates their anniversary every June lets the venue mark it without being told.

Record occasions only when the guest has shared them, and use them gently. A thoughtful touch on an anniversary is welcome; a surprise that reveals the venue knows more than the guest expected is not.

Notes let the team record anything useful that does not fit a field: a guest who likes to be left alone, a regular who always orders off the menu, a family whose children need high chairs. Good notes are short, factual and useful.

Write every note as if the guest might read it, because they might, and because the note should help the next person who serves them. A note that is accurate and kind is a good note.

Some things do not belong on a guest profile: opinions about the guest's appearance or character, guesses about their wealth or health, gossip, complaints the team made about them, anything that would embarrass the guest or the venue if they saw it.

Our guide to notes you should not keep about a guest covers the line in detail. A profile is for looking after the guest, not for judging them.

Guest data is everything the venue holds about its guests: the profiles, the bookings, the visits, the spending and the messages. It is valuable to the venue, and it belongs, in an important sense, to the guests.

Collect only what helps the venue look after guests or that the guest has agreed to share, and use it only for those purposes. Our guide to guest data: what to collect and what to leave covers the decisions.

Guest privacy means treating guest data with care: keeping it secure, sharing it only with the people who need it, using it only for the purposes the guest would expect and respecting a guest's wish to receive no marketing or to be forgotten.

Many places have data protection laws that set rules for guest data, such as the GDPR in Europe and the UK's own version of it. Know the rules where you trade, and take advice on how they apply to your records.

A guest profile may include whether the guest has agreed to receive marketing, such as a newsletter or offers, and when they agreed. Only guests who have agreed should receive marketing, and every message should make it easy to stop.

Keep the consent with the profile, with when and where it was given, and honour an unsubscribe at once. A guest who receives marketing they did not agree to loses trust in the venue.

Not everyone on the team needs to see everything on a profile. The host needs the name, the visits, the preferences and the allergies; the kitchen needs the allergies; a manager may need the spending. Few people need the contact details.

Set access by role, where the system allows, so each person sees what they need. A profile that every member of staff can read in full, including temporary staff, is a risk to the guest's privacy.

Duplicates are the most common problem with guest profiles. A guest who books once with a work email and once with a personal one, or whose name is spelled two ways, ends up with two profiles, each with half their history.

Merge duplicates when they are found, carefully, so the visits, preferences and allergies end up on one profile. A regular split across three profiles looks like three occasional guests.

Profiles are useful only if the team uses them. Brief the team before service on the guests with notable profiles: the regulars, the allergies, the occasions. Make the profile easy to see at the host stand and on the server's screen when the guest arrives.

A profile that is consulted before the guest sits down shapes the whole evening. One that is checked only after the guest complains has come too late.

In a group, a guest may visit several venues. A shared profile lets every venue recognise them, see their allergies and know they are a regular elsewhere in the group.

Decide what each venue sees, and keep the guest's experience consistent. A guest who is treated as a regular at one venue and a stranger at another notices.

A guest profile is the basic unit of customer relationship management: the practice of using what a business knows about its customers to look after them and keep them. In a restaurant, that means recognition, the right welcome and, for guests who have agreed, messages that bring them back.

The tools can be simple. The habit of recording what matters, and using it, is what makes the difference.

Profiles go out of date: guests change their email, move away, develop new allergies or stop coming. Review profiles from time to time: correct what is wrong, merge duplicates and remove information that is no longer needed.

An accurate profile is useful; an out-of-date one can mislead. A profile that still shows a guest's old allergy, or a preference they no longer have, can lead the team to the wrong decision.

Guests sometimes ask the venue to remove their data, or to stop contacting them. Honour the request promptly and in line with the law where you trade, and make sure the request is recorded, so the guest is not added again by accident.

Know what your systems can and cannot delete, and what the law requires you to keep, such as records needed for tax. Take advice where the two pull in different directions.

Some guests book for others: an assistant booking for an executive, a parent booking for a family, a friend booking for a group. The profile may belong to the person who booked, not the person who dines.

Note who the booking is for, where it matters, and look after the diner as well as the booker. An assistant who books every week for the same executive deserves recognition too.

A guest's first visit creates their profile. Make sure the basics are right from the start: the name spelled correctly, the contact details, any allergy mentioned. A profile that starts wrong stays wrong.

Ask a first-time guest, gently, whether they have any allergies or preferences the venue should know. It shows care and starts the profile with what matters most.

Profiles protect the venue when staff change. The knowledge that used to live in one server's memory, who likes which table, who is allergic to what, stays with the venue when the server leaves.

Encourage the team to add what they learn to the profiles, so the knowledge is shared. A server who knows a regular well should make sure the next server can know them too.

Many profiles show how much a guest has spent over their visits. Spend helps the venue recognise its most valuable guests, but it should be used with care: a guest who spends little but visits often is as important as one who spends a lot once.

Use spend alongside visits, not instead of them. The guests who keep coming back are the venue's foundation.

Some venues group guests into tiers, such as new, regular and valued, by their visits or spend. Tiers help the team recognise guests at a glance and decide how to welcome them.

Keep the tiers about recognition, not rewards the venue cannot sustain. A regular who is greeted by name values that far more than a discount.

A guest's feedback belongs on their profile: what they enjoyed, what disappointed them, how the venue responded. The next time they visit, the team knows whether to make up for a bad evening or repeat a good one.

Follow up on feedback where the guest asked for it, and note the follow-up. A guest whose complaint was answered, and who sees on their next visit that the venue remembered, often becomes loyal.

Guest data must be kept secure: profiles protected by passwords, access limited to those who need it, devices locked when not in use. A tablet with guest profiles left open at the host stand is a privacy risk.

Remove access promptly when a member of staff leaves. A former employee who can still see the guest list is a risk the venue does not need.

Guests have a right to know what the venue keeps about them, and many will ask. Have a plain explanation ready: what the venue records, why and how a guest can see, correct or remove their information.

A venue that is open about its guest data earns more trust than one that is vague.

Profiles sometimes include information about children: a child's allergy, a family's need for a high chair. Record only what helps the venue look after them, and be especially careful with any information about children.

A note that a family needs a high chair is useful; detailed information about a child is rarely needed and should not be kept.

On the busiest nights, the team has little time to read profiles. Make the most important information stand out: allergies first, then the guest's status as a regular, then any occasion or preference that matters tonight.

A profile that shows the allergy in the first line is read on a busy night. One where the allergy is buried in a long note may not be.

A profile is built over many visits, not in one. The first visit gives the name and perhaps an allergy; later visits add preferences, occasions and a picture of how the guest likes to be looked after.

Encourage the team to add a little each time they learn something useful. Over a year, the profiles of the venue's regulars become one of its most valuable assets.

An invented bistro relies on its best server's memory to recognise regulars. When she leaves, the bistro starts building profiles: every guest's visits from the bookings and bills, allergies recorded on the profile from the booking, a few preferences and occasions noted by the team, and duplicates merged when found. Notes are kept short and kind, and only the manager can see spending.

The host checks the profiles of the night's bookings before service, and the briefing mentions the regulars, the allergies and any occasions. Within a few months, regulars are greeted by name by whoever is on the door, and the anniversary regular is seated at her corner table in June without having to ask.

In servearound, each guest has a profile with their visit history and spend, notes, allergies and dietary needs, tags, birthday and preferences, built from their bookings and visits; on a booking, the team sees the guest's visit count, last visit, notes, preferences, allergies and a VIP marker. Allergies entered on a booking are saved to the profile, and every guest is New, Regular, VIP or VVIP by rules the venue sets.

Duplicate guests can be merged, guests can be imported from an Excel or CSV file, and marketing consent is kept with when it was asked for, confirmed or withdrawn. Guests cannot be exported, removing a guest takes them off the list, and there is no data-retention setting or permanent erasure tool. See Guest CRM.

The record of what the venue knows about a guest, used to look after them well.

Contact details, visits, allergies, useful preferences, occasions shared and short, kind notes.

Opinions, guesses about wealth or health, gossip and anything embarrassing if the guest saw it.

Clearly and separately from preferences, and confirmed from time to time.

Each person what they need for their role, and few people the contact details.

Collect only what helps, keep it secure and follow the data protection rules where you trade.

Merge them carefully, so one profile holds the whole history.

From time to time, to correct, merge and remove what is no longer needed.

What is a guest profile? It is the record behind recognition: who the guest is, their visits, their allergies, their useful preferences and the occasions they have shared. Guest profiles let the whole team welcome a guest the way the best server always did.

Record allergies separately, keep notes short and kind and leave off anything that judges the guest. Treat guest data as the guests' as much as the venue's, respect guest privacy and consent, give each role only what it needs, merge duplicates and keep every profile accurate.