Pull pints,
not the phone.

Yes. Zavo connects to the diary pubs actually use — ResDiary, DesignMyNight, OpenTable, or SevenRooms — and books from your live availability, so it only ever offers tables you genuinely have free. Every reservation, reschedule, and cancellation writes back to the diary in real time, so what's on the screen behind the bar always matches reality and you never get two groups sat at the same table. If you keep a paper diary or run something of your own, that's fine too: Zavo captures each booking in a clean format and sends it straight to your inbox or a shared sheet. Tell us how you take bookings now and we'll set it up around the way your pub already works.

That's its main job. When someone rings to book, Zavo takes the date, time, and number in the party, checks your live diary, and confirms a table on the spot — inside, in the beer garden, or wherever you've got room. It can hold the bigger tables for groups, note a high chair or a wheelchair space, and flag anyone wanting a particular spot. The booking lands in your diary instantly and the caller gets a confirmation by text, so nothing depends on a scrap of paper surviving a busy shift. Walk-ins and quick turnarounds are handled to your rules. The result is a fuller room with far less effort, because the calls that used to ring out during service now turn straight into covers.

Yes, and these are the calls worth catching. When someone enquires about a birthday, a wake, a christening, or the work Christmas do, Zavo takes the whole picture — the date, rough numbers, whether they want the function room or a long table, food, and the occasion — and logs it as a proper lead instead of a name on a beer mat. It can answer the obvious questions about hire, minimum spend, and what's included, then route the enquiry straight to whoever runs the diary so you can quote and confirm. Because it answers around the clock, the party planned at eleven at night is captured rather than lost to voicemail. For most pubs, this is where the money it saves is most obvious.

It can, and it protects your kitchen while it's at it. Sunday lunch is one of the busiest things a pub sells and the hardest to manage on the phone, because the calls come thick and fast while you're already flat out. Zavo takes each roast booking with the time and the number of covers, drops it straight into the diary, and gives the kitchen a real headcount to prep against — so you're far less likely to run short on the beef at one o'clock or over-order and waste it. It can note who wants the nut roast or a children's portion, and send a reminder the day before to cut no-shows. Your Sundays end up fuller, calmer, and better stocked.

Zavo is built for the larger jobs as well as the table for two. For a buyout, a 40-person wake, or a corporate do, it captures the full brief — numbers, date, food, the room you'd use — and can explain your hire terms and minimum spend before passing it to you. Where a deposit is needed, it doesn't read card numbers over the phone; instead it sends the caller a secure payment link, so the booking is locked in without anyone touching sensitive details. The whole enquiry, with notes, lands with whoever owns the diary so you can finalise it properly. Big bookings stop slipping through the cracks of a busy service and start being captured the moment the caller picks up the phone.

Yes — you decide what's worth interrupting a shift for. It picks out the calls that count — a large party enquiry, a supplier with a delivery problem, a regular asking for you by name — and puts them through to whoever you've chosen, with a quick note on what was said. Everything else is handled or logged for later, so you're not pulled off the bar for a question about opening hours. You set the rules: which calls ring through immediately, which wait for a callback, and who covers what. So a hot function enquiry no longer waits in a voicemail box until the morning — whoever you've chosen hears about it in seconds and can ring back while the booking is still warm.

It only ever says what you've configured, so it stays inside your licence and your house rules. You tell it your line on age verification and Challenge 25, last orders, whether under-18s are welcome and until when, dog policy, and anything else that matters at your door — and it repeats exactly that, never freelancing a promise you can't keep. If a caller asks something that needs a licensee's judgement, it takes the details and passes it to you rather than guessing. Every call is logged with a transcript, which gives you a clean record of what was said to whom. The agent is there to answer and book within your rules, not to make decisions that are yours to make.

Yes. Security is built in, not bolted on. Calls are encrypted on the way in and held safe at rest, with access locked down and logged, and the host only shares what you've set it to share. Customer names, numbers, and booking details are handled to enterprise standards, never sold on and never used to train anyone else's models. Where a deposit is involved, payment is taken through a secure link rather than card details being spoken aloud, so nothing sensitive passes over the call. Every call is logged in full, which helps you meet your own data-protection duties and shows clearly how any enquiry was dealt with. If you've specific requirements around how long booking data is kept, we'll talk you through Zavo's approach to retention before you switch it on.

That's exactly when it earns its keep. On a match day, a festive Friday, or a sunny bank holiday, your phone rings constantly while your team is at full stretch — and that's when the most bookings get missed. Zavo answers every one of those calls at once, with no hold music and no queue, so a caller wanting a table for the big game gets booked in rather than giving up and trying elsewhere. It works through the night and the early morning too, capturing the enquiries that land long after last orders. There's no rota to manage and no extra cover to pay for. The busier you get, the more calls a single phone would have dropped — and the more Zavo quietly saves.

Yes. If you run a group or a small estate, Zavo can answer for each site with its own diary, food times, function space, and house rules, while giving you one view across the lot. A caller reaches a host that knows that pub's room and availability, not a generic call centre that can't tell the village inn from the city-centre bar. Opening hours, escalation contacts, and call handling can all differ from one site to the next. Reporting rolls up so you can compare call volumes, booked covers, and captured parties pub by pub, and spot where the phone is quietly costing trade. Whether you've one house or a dozen, every caller is answered consistently and their booking lands with the right team.

It helps in two ways that add up. First, you stop losing calls: the table and party enquiries that used to ring out during service or after hours are answered and booked, so more of the trade you already attract actually lands. Second, every enquiry arrives logged and tidy, so you follow up the function leads faster and more consistently — and speed of reply is often what wins a party over the pub down the road. Most pubs see more covers booked and more function enquiries captured within the first few weeks, simply because nothing is being dropped. We'd sooner you measured it on your own till: Zavo logs every call, booking, and lead, so you can weigh what it brings in against what you pay.

No — it only ever says what you've set it to say. Zavo isn't improvising; it works from the details you give it about your pub, so it won't invent a quiz night that isn't on, quote a hire price you haven't set, or promise a table you don't have. If a caller asks something outside what it knows, it takes their details and passes the question to you rather than guessing. You can listen back to any call, see exactly what was said, and tighten its answers whenever you like — adding the questions your locals actually ask or adjusting how it describes the food. The everyday questions get fast, accurate answers, and anything needing real judgement still reaches a person.

Yes, and it makes a real difference to a busy diary. The moment a table or party is booked, Zavo sends a confirmation by text so the customer has the details and your diary is up to date. It sends a reminder the day before, which is one of the simplest ways to cut the no-shows that wreck a Friday. If a table doesn't show or cancels late, it can flag it so you can re-let the space rather than leave it empty during service. It can also follow up after a function to capture feedback or tee up the next booking. All of this happens automatically, so your covers hold firmer and your team doesn't spend the afternoon ringing round to confirm.

Most pubs go live the same day and are fully settled within a few days. There's no kit to buy and nothing to install behind the bar. You switch your existing number over to Zavo, connect your booking diary, and tell it the essentials — your room, your food and roast times, your house rules, and how you like different enquiries handled. Right from its first call it speaks in your pub's name and tone, and you can replay any conversation and fine-tune its answers as you go. Connecting your diary on the technical side is something we take care of. Most landlords find the biggest task is simply writing down how they want things handled — which is a handy exercise in itself.

That's completely fine — plenty of good pubs do. Zavo connects to the main booking systems out of the box, but it doesn't need one to be useful. If you keep a paper diary behind the bar, it can still take every booking and enquiry, note it down in a tidy, structured form, and get it to you whichever way works — a text, an email, or a shared sheet your team checks before each shift — so nothing is lost and you stay in control of the actual diary. When you're ready to move to a digital system, Zavo connects straight to it. You won't be left out because you run your bookings the traditional way, and you're never forced to change how your pub works to use it.