Pizza Express increases phone bookings by 42%.

The challenge

For a restaurant group operating 450+ locations across the UK and Ireland, phone bookings represent a significant revenue channel, but also a significant operational challenge. During peak service hours, front-of-house staff face an impossible choice: answer the phone, or serve the guests already in the restaurant.

Missed calls meant missed bookings. And unlike a table that simply goes unfilled, a missed reservation call often meant a customer who moved on to a competitor. Pizza Express had no automated way to capture bookings outside opening hours, and no visibility into how many calls were going unanswered across the estate.

The solution

iovox partnered with Pizza Express and liveRES, their reservation management platform, to deploy a fully-integrated phone booking system across all locations. The solution enables the AI to handle inbound reservation calls autonomously: checking availability in real time against the liveRES system, taking party sizes and dietary requirements, and confirming bookings directly without any staff involvement.

Outside opening hours, calls are handled automatically, with no voicemail and no call-backs required. SMS confirmations go to guests immediately. The system scales to handle peak volumes without any change to restaurant operations.

The integration with liveRES means every phone booking appears in exactly the same system as online bookings, with no double-entry and no separate admin for phone reservations.