 |
| > Blog Categories |
|
| > Blog Archives |
|
|
Google-izing Your Restaurant
Posted by Brad Brooks at April 13, 2009 11:30 AM
This is not about showing up on the first page of Google search results.
It's about thinking about your restaurant the way that Google would if they were running it.
In Jeff Jarvis' book What Would Google Do?, he dedicates a chapter to
describing what he thinks Google would do if they were in the retail
business and specifically describes the restaurant indusry.
Here are a few of the highlights
Survey diners at the end of every meal and make menu adjustments accordingly
Crowdsource the job of sommelier
List other restaurants that your customers might also enjoy
Open-Source the restaurant - Give away all of your recipes
Take customer suggestions to improve dishes based on your open-source menu
Stage bake-offs and cooking challenges - the winners get on the menu - Apple's App Store applied to the restaurant industry.
Develop a community within your customer base - get your customers talking to each other
Put videos on your website teaching people to cook and use your customers in the videos
In addition to Jeff's ideas above, here are a few of my own (that I mostly stole from a co-worker - thanks Dan):
Customers can handle the truth
Show recommendations on the menu from other customers. It would beat the dreary response of "Oh, everything" we get from many servers when asked the question, "What's good on the menu?"
Imagine looking at a menu where it clearly stated 77% of customers liked this item.
That might take it a little to far for our comfort level, but what if we dialed it back a notch and just put on the comments from both sides.
People who loved this item commented: "Loved the spice", "Hot, but really well balanced", "Favorite Thai dish on the west side"
People who didn't like this item commented: "Waaayyy too hot!", "First few bites were okay - then I started sweating"
Much of our satisfaction is based on our expectation. Would you order this item? If you love spicy food then yes. If you're like me and you start sweating at just the thought of a Hunan pepper, then you'll probably pass. The funny thing is, other than knowing that the item is a Thai dish, we don't even know what it is. The recommendations are that powerful.
Your descriptions might not be cutting it
Let people look at your menu in different ways. Alright, now I know this might smack of 2 am post-bar visits to Denny's where the only thing you can do is point at an image of a stack of pancakes and grunt, but hear me out.
How many times have you been at a restaurant that only had descriptions on the menu and found yourself craning your neck to see what other tables were having. Clearly, there's a need. We just need to find an elegant solution. I think the right technology may already be almost here (sorry, we don't sell it). Look at the Amazon Kindle or Sony Digital Reader. When those go color, that could hold some promise.
For the Calorie Counters
Give people the information they want. For the health conscious, what if you went above and beyond any state or provincial regulations concerning health and offered to email the nutritional information for the items on your customer's bill so that they could enter it into their own diet planner? Not only would you get permission to email your customers but you'd show genuine concern for their needs.
So here's the skinny. Every day, restaurant owners create a wealth of data that needs to be harnessed. If we used it well, we could better hear what our customers are saying, both with their words and more importantly, with their actions.
I had the chance to spend some time one-on-one with Jeff on my radio show. If you're interested, you can listen in here.
Jeff posted an excerpt from his book on this topic on his blog. Click here to read it.
 Category: Technology
Comments
|
