Table for Two Please?
Online Reservations
Isn’t it a pain making reservations for your wedding anniversary, Valentine’s Day or any special occasion for that matter. Online reservation websites for restaurants have made this process much easier by allowing customers to make reservations online! Opentable.com is the most popular website for online reservations and they feature over 25,000 restaurants worldwide from small town to top city restaurants.
“It's a fast, easy (and) reliable way to make your table reservations without having to be put on hold or talk to multiple people...”; a statement from one of my colleagues, Courteney Bush, who is a frequent user of OpenTable.
It took a few years to get the service up and running but surprisingly it was founded back in 1998, by Chuck Templeton of San Francisco. He created the service after his wife spent 3 ½ hours on the phone trying to make reservations for her parents that were coming to town to visit. The service has grown substantially and provides a great service to customers and restaurateurs. It’s free for customers and the website receives funding from the restaurants and their partner (Google, Bing and Zagat) websites.
The restaurants can pay monthly or as an on-going service. They are equipped with software that allows them to manage reservations, guests, tables and marketing. Another awesome features it that the restaurant can track regular customers with the guest management feature.
“We like to remember the clients' birthdays, their favorite tables, their likes and dislikes. With OpenTable you don't have to keep it in your head, it's all there in front of you.” Yuta Tsonada of Chaya Brasserie restaurant from BBC World News
Even though this is an awesome service, its probably best for restaurants that receive a high frequency and volume of business. The service can be expensive and because of this, the ROI would be higher for popular restaurants.
SeatMe.com and UrbanSpoon.com are also online restaurant reservation sites. The next time you decide to go to your favorite restaurant or even if you don’t know where to go, check out some of these services to make your reservation!
Chicago Tribue – “New website helps neighbors share stuff, be green
OpenTable founder Chuck Templeton starts new website, OhSoWe.com” 2011
Photo by New York Times
I love Urbanspoon.com and opentable. I use these websites all the time. I like to read the reviews from other customers. I used opentable to make a reservation for a restaurant I went to for my birthday and it was so efficient.
ReplyDeleteLove your graphic. As a foodie, i am looking forward to learning fomr you blog.
ReplyDeleteOpen Table freaks me out! I'm always worried that when I get there they won't have my reservation because I didn't get confirmation from a live person. That's silly I guess. I'm going to try it soon because you recommended it.
ReplyDeleteIm a huge fan of both websites, like Jaslyn I use them to read reviews of restaurants im interested in visiting and also the convenience of being able to book reservations online. Im looking forward to more info from your blog:)
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