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Retail 2.0: The Social Restaurant
Take, for example, a quick-service restaurant that put up an LCD screen in its dining room. On that screen was a poll that encouraged customers to text their satisfaction with the service they received at this visit. The poll would update in real time (conferences often have these types of polls). The screen could display not only the real-time results but results for the week, the month and the year. Chains would get genuine feedback from their customers in real time that could be seen not only by other customers but by the crew, as well. Think about the motivating impact that knowledge would have with the crew in real time!
Now take it a step further and place the results of that poll on your Facebook fan page. Let your fans see how customers feel about your service before they leave to go to your restaurant. Would you have the fortitude to expose that type of information to the Web? Why not?
What if you enticed customers to send their feedback text by giving them a $2 gift? Rather than a plastic gift card, though, you send them an eGiftSocial gift that automatically writes on their Facebook wall that they received it (and encourages those who see it to purchase one, too)—”Main Street Burgers just gave Jocelyn a medium fry!”
What if there was another screen in the restaurant that displayed Twitter and Facebook sentiment? People in the restaurant could read what people outside the restaurant are saying about your brand while they eat their meals.
Do you think your loyal fans might defend you if they saw negative sentiment in real time? Are they defending you today?
If you owned a fine-dining restaurant, would you consider handing your guests an iPad with their check, asking them to write a review on Yelp? Why not? What better time to get their feedback memorialized than just after they finished a nice bottle of wine and some scrumptious desert?
For locations with a drive-thru, would you be willing to set up a Twitter account that provides real-time information on how long the line was in the drive thru? “Dallas_Burgers_on_Main: DT times at 2:03.” Do you think you might convince some people to buy their lunch from you if they were in a hurry? What about posting streaming video of the drive-thru stack to the Web?
-Marc
October 14th, 2010 at 9:50 am
When you look at the history of innovation, there are key events that dramatically shift the normal flow of life (airplanes, semiconductors, microwave ovens, …). In the months before these introductions, we could not fathom the possibilities (I can cook a potato in 20 minutes instead of an hour).
Todd has in this article identified one such future situation that today we are skeptical about — in just the same way as with those earlier events. I think we are only just beginning to understand the effects of the Social Networking concept, and it may not be until those who are most familiar with it come of age to start their own businesses that exploit it.
Dynamic restaurant service performance tracking is an interesting concept, and I suppose it will take some owners to try it — succeed in some areas, fail in others — before we know how it best works (e.g. customer survey codes & links on receipts). But isn’t that the way all new ventures start out? For what it’s worth, I would opt for a dashboard style feedback display; after seeing the way people comment on news articles, it may be best not to readily post raw comments.
October 14th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
James,
Thanks so much for your comment! What is interesting is that a large part of user adoption has come prior to the financial benefit being maximized. This is backward to traditional concepts and traditional thinking. There is so much possibility of how these tools can be implemented for financial gain, I’m just not sure everyone sees it.
Thanks again!