You snooze you lose

In South Africa we have a popular saying which is “You snooze you lose” which simply means; if you procrastinate about doing something someone else will get it done and you will lose out on the benefit of being the first. It’s with little surprise that you will find many South Africans have an engrained entrepreneurial streak in them…we don’t like losing, so we try not to snooze.

Now why am I going on about this…I will tell you why!

A few weekends ago I was at a well know karting track with a group of friends and the place was full of men aged 16 to 30+ (Bang on the mark when it comes to smartphone ownership and usage) doing what boys do and having a whale of a time racing karts.

As I sat there what I did notice was that the chaps not racing had mobile phones in their hands. Using the phone’s camera and in general using their phones presumably texting, tweeting….. What an opportunity to engage directly with these individuals and to get them to advocate this experience with all their friend, fans and followers by giving them an appropriate channel to do exactly that…..the answers is in their hands or in their pockets 24/7. Trust me 99.9% of these chaps don’t go anywhere without their phones …and 99.9% of these chaps have a smartphone (fact).

This place is screaming out for an app – a mobile web app and a dedicated app.

The mobile web app is the reactive channel – it's there for when people are searching for you on their mobile phones and

the dedicated app is the proactive channel - reminding the phone owner that you exist, what you do, what’s happening, giving them the ability to check and compare their lap times, take photos and log their experience to keep, to send you feedback directly, to contact you directly and provide them with a tool that facilitates them to share this awesome experience through their social network all in one place at their fingertips. A channel that you can send a push notification to reminding your app user of an event or rewarding them with an exclusive offer.

So now what was the response of the MD of this company when I approached him ….."We are a long way from making a decision on apps as our existing software house and web developers are planning a mobile web version of our site anyway and we will need to see if that suffices"

Guess what …YOU SNOOZE YOU LOSE!!

If you want to get ahead of the game NOW not when it’s crowded place then contact me nelson@realtimeseating.com or send DM me @realtimeseating

13/02/2012 permalink | 0 Comments »

Should Restaurants be doing more to inform us

It began with a tweet. We asked the following question; what do people expected from restaurants during 2011? We had numerous similar responses from people along the lines:

• better value (good quality food better priced),

• higher level of service (better service like we get abroad – which really depends where you are “abroad”)

• new cuisine? (whatever that meant)

• sustainable food source (e.g. fish such as dab)

• Offers & more offers

and then this tweet from Issi Gane (@issiwissy)

@realtimeseating clear labelling of what is suitable for people with allergies - e.g. 'contains gluten'

The issue – clear labelling on menus

Now it turns out that Issi has Coeliac Disease meaning that she can't eat any gluten. This really impacts on where Issi eats out.

We thought this was a good & valid point to discuss and opened up the issue to all our followers on twitter.

Like most subjects the easy solution is to say that all restaurants should clearly label all their dishes but now imagine how large a menu would become if we did this for gluten, wheat, dairy intolerants and then caffeine and so on. So it was unsurprising that one of the very first responses was from a restaurant rubbishing the idea. Fair enough it would make their menu a nightmare but the reality of the situation is that like Issi there is a lot of people (and I mean a lot including my wife & daughter) who suffer from a gluten, wheat, dairy allergy and although in my wife’s case it’s not life threatening if she does eat something that she shouldn’t she is violently ill which in anyone’s book is not a great eating out experience.

So what could be the solution?

• A number of people recommended training of FOH (Front Of House) staff is the solution, but the nature of this business is that there is a high turnaround of FOH staff (yes we agree that there are restaurants that have a low if not a zero turnaround of FOH staff but they are not the majority).

• The Customer asking FOH staff who if unsure would communicate with Chef to get guidance (at the peak of service can you see this “communication” taking place?)

• Labelling menu for gluten, wheat & dairy (being the ones most people mentioned)

So clearly not one solution but the mere fact that people, restaurants, chefs and FOH staff all contributed to this discussion the majority wants to address the issue and find a workable solution.

But this discussion lasted about an hour on twitter so by no means did we explore all the possibilities, so my question to you is what would you like to see happen if you are a sufferer or a chef or restaurateur?

P.S One thing that everyone was unanimous about was that we don’t want government stepping in and start dedicating what we should be doing …. Please no

02/02/2011 permalink | 0 Comments »

The first & only last-minute texting & booking system for Restaurants in the UK

It’s amazing how many times people say to us what a simple idea this is and why hasn’t someone done it before? The answer is simply I have no idea.

The concept is simple:

- Text potential diners that have opted in to receive texts from your restaurant with a last-minute offer and complete the booking using text messaging for those diners that choose to take up the offer

The execution is a bit more complicated but with a state of the art database & texting platform and years of experience in structuring text messages, that evoke a high level of response, we are able to provide our clients with bookings when they are most needed. Be it on a quieter trading day or the early bird slot (before 7:30pm) or late night slot (9:30pm slot).

This is where the journey starts with our clients – this system quickly evolves into a direct communication tool with your loyal & regular customers.

Once our clients' customers are familiar with our system our text messages morph into messages that evoke engagement from customers. This assists us in building a profile for each customer with such information as who has children, who works late, who is on holiday and where, who plays badminton and what night they do so, and so on and on…..

The next stage is to engage with customers and receive feedback on what it is our clients do well & what they could do better? Further reinforcing the relationship between restaurant and regular diner until eventually we reach a point in the journey where the customer becomes the restaurants greatest evangelist (forwarding our texts to friends & texts with video clips of our client’s restaurant that become viral within this group of friends)

So it is unsurprising that our system has become a priority tool for our restaurant clients to engage directly with their customers.

Other Services provided by Realtimeseating:

Social Media Management System: Alongside our last-minute texting & booking system realtimeseating provides a Social Media management system where we help our clients develop, implement and manage a social networking strategy so as to gain the maximum benefit from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, foursquare & LinkedIn. .

If you would like to discuss how we can help please call Nelson directly on 07544 573872 or visit www.realtimeseating.com

22/01/2011 permalink | 0 Comments »

Should Restaurants bother with twitter

This question came about while I was talking to one of our clients last week. We were meeting to discuss the realtimeseating late availability texting service we provide to them and during the course of the conversation I happened to mention twitter, at which point my client said he could not be bothered with it?

When I asked him why he thought this, he simply said that twitter was just a fad and of no value to any business. I then tried to explain to him that twitter is about engaging and building up relationships with your customers and potential customers, other restaurants and restaurateurs, foodies, local people and local area “advocates”, raising your profile and building a network of people interested in what you do and monitoring what is being said about your restaurant. (a perfect example below)

“@realtimeseating: White Brasserie (Kings Arms) in #Teddington . Last night good food and ambience but deplorable service.

His argument was that twitter was a waste of time and time cost money.

Having worked with this particular client for two months and knowing that to him the proof is in the pudding, I simply said that I was going to tweet that afternoon asking local people and local area “advocates” what their favourite restaurant was in the area (in this case Teddington) and would let him know what the result was.

He could not believe when I called him within 24 hours with the following results:

13 replies –all local people

12 different restaurants (his restaurant was named twice)

A total of 3,067 followers between the people that replied (a potential 3,000 fold exposure of his restaurant and 11 other restaurants mentioned)

So his setting up his twitter account as I write this …..

[Just this morning we received a reply suggesting a restaurant and the person has 100 followers so the exposure for that restaurant has just increased potentially 100 fold]

For those that are interested, below is the list tweeted to us of people's (peeps) local favourite restaurant in Teddington:

1. Retro

2. Scarpetta

3. Prem

4. Simply Thai

5. Red Peppers

6. Bloated Mallard

7. The Wharf

8. Tide End Cottage Pub

9. Al Borgo

10. White Brasserie

11. Shambles