Skip to main content

Why Opentable is actually a viable business

Despite even mom-and-pop hole-in-the-wall restaurants having a website and e-mail address (and probably a Facebook account), probably the number one reason why OpenTable actually works as a business model is NOT by dangling the carrot of free dining cheques in front of users. That just encourages them with positive reinforcement to actually show up for their reservations.

Without having done any actual surveys, I suspect the number one reason OpenTable works is because a lot of restaurants are absolutely lousy with online reservations.
You can e-mail them using their online form or provided e-mail, and any number of these can happen:
  • You never get a response.
    • WTF?
  • You are lucky to get a response days later.
    • WTF?
  • You get a voicemail asking you to call them.
    • WTF? I E-MAILED you because I wanted to handle this ONLINE. Why do you bother having an e-mail address?
If you call the restaurant, especially a busy restaurant, you may have to deal with:
  • An answering machine and phone tag.
  • It's so noisy over there they can't hear you anyway.
  • A conversation that could have taken a fraction of the time had you done it online.
With OpenTable, you will probably still have to deal with the above if you have special information to convey (e.g., you're all a bunch of kosher vegans; your party is a soccer team of 10+ people). But at the very least, for even reasonably large groups of 6-8, you can know for sure whether you have a confirmed reservation or not.

TIP: If the restaurant you are looking for is not on OpenTable, they might be on the similar service BookEnda.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 3

A picture from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. I can't remember why I had this couple in the picture, but I do vaguely remember this to be in London, on the first official day of the tour group getting together. Their insistence on my helping them take a picture caused the three of us to be late getting back to the bus. The local tour guide had a "rule" about lateness, that we had to buy chocolate to share with everyone. As it turned out, later in the trip, on at least two occasions, we were stuck on the highway on either a long commute or a traffic jam, and I had chocolate and chocolate-covered marzipan to share. About the chocolate-covered marzipan -- Apparently we were in Austria just as they were celebrating Mozart's birthday with special marzipans wrapped in foil with the famous composer's picture. I'm pretty sure it was Mirabell Mozartkugeln . Anyway, there were enough to go around the en

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 10

The last of my pictures (at least the ones that survived the cheesy disposable cameras) from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. Below is the obligatory group photo. Not sure everyone's in it, actually. I'm pretty sure this one was taken by the tour director, Mike Scrimshire as I'm in the back row, on the right side.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 9

More assorted couples on my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. An American couple who joked about being from "the land of the giants" -- and with good reason, because both of them were really tall! A cute Jewish mother-daughter pair who ducked out part-way to divert to Israel. I vaguely remember the issue of the daughter being an orthodox Jew was highlighted in France when, to make things easy, she just declared herself vegetarian for the wait staff. I also remember there was some logistics error in France because our party size was way underestimated or simply relayed incorrectly, and there was a shortage of food at dinner. Dessert came as an unopened can of yogurt. It did not seem like they tried to make it up to us later, either. Plus there was smoking every which way in France, and I had a helluva time with that. We were also in a hotel that seemed tucked away in the burbs, and not walking distance from anythin