http://www.nrn.com/landingPage.aspx?coll_id=632&menu_id=1408&globalMenuTab=-1
Archive for the ‘Restaurant Technology’ Category
Social networking sites for restaurants
February 27, 2009Hey Businesses! Social Media Users Want Your Attention
October 22, 2008It seems that users are actually receptive to the idea of companies getting involved on social media platforms and interacting with them while there. Out of the 85% of users who want companies to have a presence in social media, 34% want companies to actively interact with them and 51% want companies to interact with them as needed or by request. 8% think companies should only be passively involved on social media and 7% think companies should not be involved at all.
This desire for business-to-consumer interaction goes beyond simply offering customer service via Twitter. Although 43% would like to see companies offering customer service through social media, 41% would like companies to solicit feedback and 37% would like companies to provide new ways to interact with the brand via social media. These numbers could not be more clear: these consumers are practically begging for businesses to get involved in social media.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/majority_of_social_media_users_want_businesses_attention.php
Feedback site gives doctors chance to see how their work rates with patients
October 14, 2008Dr. Steven Feldman views patient complaints as a gift.
Web sites that allow patients to go online and rate or comment on experiences with doctors are popping up more frequently. Some in the medical community are skeptical about their legitimacy, worried that disgruntled patients will be emboldened by anonymity and post false information that could harm their practices.
But, as a dermatologist and professor at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Feldman found his feedback from hand-written surveys helpful. The only way to improve medical care, he says, is to learn what patients don’t like and make it better.
http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/stories/2008/09/01/smallb1.html
Monitoring the staff pays off
October 10, 2008http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/smallbusiness/surveillance.fsb/index.htm?postversion=2008100313
ERIE, COLO. (Fortune Small Business) — Ryan Elmore used to trust that his employees were hard at work after he left his neighborhood restaurant in Erie, Colo. Then, 18 months ago, he decided to spy on them.
Elmore, 30, installed networked cameras on the premises and started using an online service that let him view the action at his eatery. The video was highly revealing. The restaurant manager on duty went home minutes after Elmore left. Servers sat at tables, sent text messages on their cellphones, and gave free meals to friends. Cooks took multiple cigarette breaks each hour and cut corners making his signature fettuccine Alfredo.
“I couldn’t believe it,” says Elmore. “You may trust your employees, but you don’t know what happens when you walk out that door.”
Now the 20 workers at Elmore’s restaurant, Pepper Jack’s Neighborhood Grill, know the boss is watching, even if he is at home. Elmore can log in online, view a receipt, and call up the video of that transaction. He can see whether employees cleaned the restaurant when they said they would. He knows whether they’re smiling at customers. And if a customer’s order arrives at the table late or if employees are helping themselves to meals, Elmore sees it.
Chains focus on more microsites and blogs
September 18, 2008Microsites and blogs give marketers a way to communicate with customers that’s more effective than using a standard website or traditional marketing, said Brad Wahl, Krystal’s vice president of marketing.
“There are more and more opportunities [for consumers] to have a conversation with our brand,” he said. “Consumers are demanding it.”
Through behavioral research studies Krystal has learned that consumers who go to one of its blogs or microsites have different behavioral attributes than visitors to its other sites, allowing the chain to tailor marketing messages to them, Wahl said.
By GREGG CEBRZYNSKI
Getting your menus on your phone
June 3, 2008Curry lovers in Birmingham are taking advantage of new technology to order their favourite dishes from an award-winning restaurant.
The Lasan Eatery, in Stratford Road, Hall Green, has introduced an SMS service for customers to have full access to its menu on their mobile phones and to order food to be delivered or for take away.
Hungry punters simply text the word ‘lasan’ to 80800 and receive the restaurant’s full menu on their phone. Then, they can choose their dishes in a similar way to when using e-commerce websites by adding to a shopping basket.
The outlet, run by Jabbar Khan, has already seen an uplift in business thanks to the service which is proving popular with customers. Jabbar said: “We have a reputation as a fine dining experience and have also won a string of awards as well as gaining a series of positive reviews from the local and national media.
Innovation Puts Chains Ahead of the Curve
May 9, 2008Curbside pickup. Online ordering. Cell-phone coupons. Interactive Web sites. All these have been successful innovations at chain restaurants—and you can tell even without looking at the sales figures behind them.
How? The copycat factor. All four innovations, rolled in the last two years or so, are on the brink of being commonplace in the industry.
As will, we predict, the innovations we’ve gathered for this story. Whether they’re new menu items, service enhancements or online offerings, all innovations serve the same purpose: to bond customers closer to the brand. That bonding is essential not only in this slack economy, but to keep a brand a growing concern.
“Every brand has to keep ahead of the competition by continually recreating those points of difference,” says Frank Steed, president and chief executive officer of The Steed Consultancy, a chain-restaurant consulting firm based in Kerens, Texas. “With the wealth of talent and the speed of the Internet, everybody’s ability to copy is split second.”
Talking Menus: Made to Order
March 31, 2008International visitors and locals who feel more comfortable with a language other than English can hear the menu in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Mandarin, Japanese, German, Russian or a custom language. Perry says she recently received an inquiry from a Saskatchewan restaurant interested in having its menu in Czech.
Menu changes are made online. Forty-eight hours later, the restaurant owner can plug the menu devices into her computer’s USB port and download the changes spoken by professional actors or update the devices using a flash memory card. Perry says the company is working on wireless updating.
Restaurants can lease five units for $120 a month or buy all five for $3,500. Restaurants in San Antonio, Texas, and Boca Raton have the units. Perry says that Disney is evaluating the device. She is working with four or five chain restaurants and also has had inquiries from the National Park Service.
http://www.floridatrend.com/article.asp?aID=68865019.9626678.632606.8129666.713181.596&aID2=48653
Chef’s blogs
March 20, 2008
Peter DaSilva / For The Times
CLICK: Traci des Jardins, right, gets online with one of her chefs, Anastacia Quinones, at Jardiniere in San Francisco.
Foodies have been doing it for years. But now some pretty big names are logging on to the bandwagon.
WHO knew chefs see macarons in Christian Louboutin colors? Who knew restaurant plates and saucers are sold like hot dogs and buns, in mismatching quantities? And who would ever expect chefs to be as proficient with a keyboard as they are with a knife?
The answer: Anyone who has noticed chefs are suddenly taking to blogging as if it were the foam of 2008. In the last few months some of the bigger names in food across the country have joined the online chattering class, posting their innermost thoughts, with photos and recipes, just as home cooks have been doing for years.
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-dish12mar12,1,5294653.story
TableXchange.com Whose Table Is It, Anyway?
March 12, 2008But Mr. Bastianich was furious: someone was offering that table at TableXchange, a Web site on which diners can buy and sell reservations, hot commodities in a town where getting a table at the most popular restaurants has become an extreme sport.
The price was $25. The table was gone within an hour.
“We’re selling dinner; we don’t sell the opportunity to have dinner,” Mr. Bastianich said. “It goes against the grain of everything we do.”
Restaurateurs in the city say they are flummoxed and incensed by a growing marketplace for online reservations. It has been about two years since another service, PrimeTime Tables, began selling access to the most sought reservations in New York.
Restaurant owners fumed then, saying PrimeTime Tables threw a wrench into their carefully guarded reservation systems and lent to their culture of hospitality the odor of street corner ticket scalping.
But PrimeTime Tables is essentially a concierge service, confirming and canceling reservations as needed. It started out selling tables for as little as $35, and now charges an annual membership fee of $500 and $45 per reservation.
TableXchange is more irksome, Mr. Bastianich and other restaurateurs said. Its reservations are $15 to $40, and the service is similar to eBay, without the bidding.
Some restaurant owners say the service has caused more no-shows, problems in confirming reservations and mix-ups on times and sizes of parties.
See
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/dining/12reserve.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=business
