CRM and VIP card for restaurants: the Butler Collection case

A CRM with a VIP card for restaurants answers a simple question: how do you recognise your best guests, give them a reason to come back, and know what each message you send actually produces? When those guests are companies you host often, the question becomes sharper: who in the company receives which card, and what do they do with it?

This case study presents what māhie built for Butler Collection, based on the public information about our work together, and draws out advice for building your own card and CRM setup.

Butler Collection: a Paris group and day-to-day work

Butler Collection is a Paris group, whose website is butler-collection.fr. It is among the houses that trust us, and we work with it on a day-to-day basis: website, SevenRooms, and the custom CRM and card project described in this article.

The project draws on two of our areas of expertise: CRM and VIP cards on one side, and custom applications on the other, since we had to design a tool that did not exist off the shelf.

The need: a B2B system, cards and campaign tracking

The public information describes the need like this: to have a B2B management system able to send personalised cards with a QR code and a dedicated digital experience, while managing the client database and handling tracking of digital campaigns.

In other words, four needs intersect:

• managing corporate clients, not only individuals;
• making the relationship tangible through an object, the card, handed over or sent;
• linking that object to digital through a QR code that opens an experience designed for the recipient;
• measuring what digital campaigns produce.

These needs appear as soon as part of your clientele comes through a company or a personal relationship. Standard reservation tools are centred on the profile of an individual guest; running a card programme, corporate accounts and campaigns together often calls for a complementary tool.

What māhie built for Butler Collection

According to the public text on our projects page, we developed for Butler Collection:

• a B2B management system;
• the sending of personalised cards, with a QR code and a dedicated digital experience;
• management of the client database;
• tracking of digital campaigns.

Here is what Héloïse de Butler, of Butler Collection, says about our work together (original French, free translation below):

« Corentin et ses collaborateurs sont toujours aussi réactifs que problem solvers et c'est avec une confiance renouvelée que nous travaillons main dans la main ! »Héloïse de Butler · Butler Collection

Free translation: "Corentin and his colleagues are always as responsive as they are problem solvers, and it is with renewed confidence that we work hand in hand!"

Note: this article deliberately stays general. We do not detail the tool's internal workings, the database structure, volumes or figures: those belong to our client. What follows describes the general method of such a setup, not Butler Collection's configuration.

How a personalised card system with a QR code works

A card setup with a QR code rests, broadly, on five building blocks. We describe them generically.

1. A structured database. The starting point is a clean database: one record per person, linked to a company if needed, with the useful information (contact details, status, consent). Without it, cards would be sent at random. Removing duplicates and unused fields therefore comes before everything else.

2. A unique identifier per card. Each card receives an identifier tying it to a person or an account. That identifier is what later lets you know who scanned what, without asking the person to introduce themselves.

3. A QR code leading to a dedicated experience. The QR code encodes a web address that contains this identifier. Scanning it, the recipient lands on a page designed for them: presentation of the offer, a booking request, the contact person, information about the card. That page is the dedicated digital experience.

4. A management back-office. On the team side, a management tool creates accounts, issues cards, tracks their status and edits information without going through a spreadsheet. For B2B use, it must also handle the relationship between a company and its contacts.

5. Campaign tracking. Each send (card, email, message) can carry an identifiable link. These links let you count scans and visits, tie them to the originating campaign and, if the setup is connected to your reservation system, to the resulting reservations. That is how you move from "we sent it" to "here is what it produced".

Tip: always start with block 1. A beautiful card system plugged into a poorly maintained database sends the wrong cards to the wrong people.

A few practical details are worth planning for from the start. The page behind the QR code must work well on a phone, since that is where it will be opened. It should load quickly and make the next step obvious. You should also decide what happens when a card is lost or a contact leaves their company: can the card be deactivated, and can a new one be issued to the same account? These questions look minor, yet they are the ones that decide whether the team trusts the system after a few months of use.

What a restaurant or hotel can take from it

You do not need a custom build to apply the logic of this case. Here are concrete actions.

• Define who the card is for. Regulars, corporate clients, referrers: each target calls for a different message and a different reason to scan.
• Give the QR code a purpose. A QR code that leads to your home page is a missed opportunity. It should open something useful to the recipient: book, reach a person, discover a reserved offer.
• Separate individuals and companies in your database. As soon as you host companies, create a way to link several people to the same company and to know who the main contact is.
• Segment before you send. A database that distinguishes VIPs, regulars, companies and first visits allows targeted campaigns rather than blanket sends. See SevenRooms Auto-tags to automate part of this work.
• Put consent at the centre. Check what you are allowed to send to whom, and keep proof of consent. Our article on email marketing and GDPR in SevenRooms sets out the framework.
• Track few indicators, but always the same ones. Scans, page visits, reservations from each campaign: record them every week, as we explain in our guide to the KPIs to track every week.
• Test with a small group. Send twenty cards, scan them yourself, look at what the recipient sees and what you see on your side, then adjust before the full rollout.

When to choose a custom solution over a standard tool

A standard tool is often enough: if you simply want tags, segments and emails, your reservation software's database can carry most of it. A custom solution is mainly justified in three cases:

• you manage corporate accounts with several contacts;
• you want a physical object (the card) linked to a digital experience and precise tracking;
• you need a single control panel for the database, cards and campaigns that your current software does not offer.

If you do not recognise yourself in these cases, start simpler: a clean database, segments and regular follow-up beat an ambitious tool nobody uses.

CRM and VIP card for restaurants: frequently asked questions

Need help building your CRM and VIP cards?

A successful card programme rests on three things: a reliable database, a simple experience for the recipient, and tracking your team actually reads. māhie supports restaurants and hotels on all three. Concretely, we can:

• unify and clean your guest database: one record per guest, duplicates and consents handled;
• design your VIP and personalised cards, with a QR code and a dedicated digital experience;
• develop a B2B management tool for the companies you host often;
• set up targeted campaigns by segment, with tracking;
• train your teams to use the tool and read the results.

Discover our CRM & VIP cards offer, then Contact māhie.