The Unwritten Contract Has Been Re-Written
???Zack Oates??
Making Restaurants Better ?? Employee to Disruptor in The Industry after a few lessons & wins ?? The anti-survey surveyor of guest insights??3x Founder (currently CEO @Ovation) ?? Rang NASDAQ ?? Podcaster ???
200 years.
That is how long the unwritten contract between restaurants and customers has been around.
From the post-revolution restaurants in Paris, the system was established and remained mainly unadulterated: A customer walks in a door, they pick food, that food is prepared, service is rendered, payment is made. If there is a problem, someone comes up and tries to fix it.
If it was a good experience--great, maybe they’ll come back.
If it was a bad experience--great, they have a conversation topic for the next few weeks/months.
And then something happened.
A tiny virus changed everything.
COVID-19 blew that contract up.
All of a sudden, delivery was not consigned to pizza and fried noodles, third-party became as well known as third course, and safety was not a “good enough” option.
Outside the four walls, guests become customers and the table touch is no longer the method to build a relationship. Things have changed--the question is, what are we going to do about it?
With customers demanding convenience and connection to companies, we need to provide methods to make it easy for them to order and tell us how they feel. Then it is beholden on us to make sure they feel heard.
Those long surveys? Dead. Everyone hates them. (...I mean, when is the last time you took one?)
Calling over a waiter to tell them you forgot the bacon on their burger? Too late. They are on their couch when they got their meal.
A manager table touch? No thanks. Who wants those possibly-infected air particles falling on their food?
Restaurants, meet your new unwritten contract: A customer orders by one of a dozen ways, receives that food in a half-dozen ways, uses technology to instantly share feedback, and they are responded to in real-time by the restaurant.
And while there is not one company that can do everything, and I’m no expert on how to optimize your ordering process, I am an expert in the communications aspect. So if there is ever anything I can do to help out with you conveniently connecting with your customers to meet this new and evolving system, I’m happy to chat.
What has been the biggest change for your restaurant in the last few months?
Leading Partner@BDO MX Tech | My Mission is to help Humanity adapt to an Interplanetary Future through the strategic implementation of the most advanced technologies in the organizations that shape our Human Experience
2 年Zack, thanks for sharing!
Experienced Operations Leader
4 年I'm curious if the tip relationship will survive. The United States is already a bit of an oddity here, and leaving tips for servers that you have no meaningful interaction with will not last. Already in restaurants I've visited recently indoors in NV and outdoors in CA, servers are seen rarely (as expected) and they service either several more tables or have additional responsibilities to limit the number of staff on hand. My server in NV at a higher end chain was also bussing and disinfecting tables rather than banter with guests or check in regularly. We still tipped our usual amount, but it was more out of concern for the staff than service rendered. Very curious to see if restaurants will pay standard wages to wait staff and charge more for food instead of play a dangerous game of chicken with customers. The wait staff will be caught in the middle and suffer when goodwill dries up due to lack of connection.
Co-Founder @ Humanistics AI
4 年Good insight
Director at PwC Management Consulting
4 年Nails it.....that feedback loop just became so much more important. No way for a manager to effectively fix something the old way when the customer is 5+ miles away.