Automated Gratuity or How I Learned to Eat at Home

No, I'm not giving up on Takeout one bit, but this morning was an interesting and new experience for me. My wife & I wanted to order some crepes for breakfast and in the little town where we reside - there aren't that many places to go for breakfast. So, there's this one place, which is unbelievably popular, although mostly that's due to them being the only prominent place in the entire town and their food is decent, not phenomenal but decent.

One thing about that place is that it's somewhat overpriced, but again, considering their monopoly in town - it's not that surprising. So, I called them to order something to go, figured by the time I get there they should be done with it... you know how that works...

To my surprise the lady on the phone told me that the price would include gratuity of 15%. I agreed, not really thinking about it much and went on my way.

On the way I started analyzing that conversation and got totally turned off by the concept. After all - isn't gratuity suppose to be something you voluntarily provide & is strictly based on the quality of service delivered? Certain there are plenty of better restaurants that inform you right on their menus that they'll charge something automatically for handling larger parties of people, which is totally understandable, although I certainly would call something else rather than what typical tips are for. But to have a place force a gratuity on me, when I placed a phone-based order (yes, these people are obviously not on the ball in the online ordering department either, although they could certainly benefit from one based on what I've seen... just haven't evolved to Takeout Online yet) for 2 people - now driving I thought it was totally outrageous.

So, what did I do once I got to the restaurant... well, I went back to my typical thinking of 'nobody forced me to place that order', so I just paid and left, but I did want to make this entry on it. I hope what The Original House of Pancakes did isn't the norm to come. It's wrong and there's no need to redefine the word 'gratuity', which dictionary.com describes as:

1.	a gift of money, over and above payment due for service, as to a waiter or bellhop; tip.

2.	something given without claim or demand.

Would I order from them again because of this little situation, which cost me a measly $1.50 extra? In a word - NO!

After slaving at a restaurant for 7 months in my youth - I certainly know and appreciate the concept of tips, but I'm totally opposed to turning it into revenue generator, and I will not give my business to anyone who misuses the concept.

Philosophically speaking, it's rather amazing how such an inconsequential amount of money can cost a customer, permanently no less. But it does and restaurants should consider such moves carefully. In the end I think they'll become losers, not winners, even when they're the only game in town.

P.S. Btw, my father-in-law makes better crepes, so I'll be fine... :)

Would you order takeout from your cell phone?

According to the latest statistics - 29% of takeout orders are being placed via cell phones. Considering how prolific cell phone use is in today's society - it's not that surprising. With more and more phones being connected to the Internet - the question I have - would these same 29% or more place their takeout order using online ordering, instead of calling via voice?

Of course using cell phones for web is cumbersome at best, at least on most of them, including the Jesus phone (sorry, Apple). It's simply impossible to replicate the big screen environment on a dinky screen. People aren't buying bigger and bigger monitors for their computers because they'd like to consume more desk space - they want to see more, in an easier to see size... in other words bigger is better. Clearly there are some that go against the tide, but nobody's ditching their 22" monitors for any kind of cell phone, when it comes to web-based computing.

So, back to cell phones. Now that we've established that scrolling through potentially large menus is painful enough on the big screen - cell phone would make the experience rival torture, to put it mildly. So, in your opinion, what would make it simple enough to use on cell phone for you to use it for ordering takeout?

One possibility would be for you to be able to preserve your online orders and assign them a number. Each order would have a unique number. Then you could text this number to the appropriate destination and presto - your order is magically submitted with all details, payment info etc., just as you did in the past. Would that be simple enough? Would you use it if it was that simple? Other ideas? - Certainly welcome your thoughts on the subject.

SEO for Restaurants - Online Marketing

There plenty of companies now that offer online marketing options, a number of which push SEO services (Search Engine Optimization), so that everyone and their brother finds your restaurant online and then crowds of people from all over the globe will swoop down to your doorstep and you'll make more money than Bill Gates. Ok, perhaps I'm being a bit sarcastic here... but then again, perhaps not.

I won't name names here, but I did get approached by one such company and even though Takeout Online is highly visible in Google and some other search engines (are there others?), thought I'd see what they can and will do. To make a long, somewhat expensive, and totally disappointing story short - it was a total waste of resources. Yes, these people can get you some other pages built that will be findable by other people, using some specific words and phrases. Can you guarantee that your customers will use those very words? Of course not, and thus the concept falls on its face. Can they guarantee that only customers in your restaurant's takeout reach will see this ad? Of course not. So, will anyone order takeout from London to New York? Highly unlikely (although someone did try).

Having a web site for any restaurant is a must. As for improving the customer experience and generating wider reach of takeout audience and improving the bottom line... that can all be done by offering some useful and compelling content, such as basic contact and info about the restaurant and offering online ordering of takeout. Anyone who'd use search to find a place to eat will surely be savvy enough and interested in ordering food online. Being part of a larger network of restaurants immediately has great benefits, since it's much more likely to be found when you're part of a large, more visible group. Takeout-Online.com provides all of these basic elements of success for restaurants of any size and type, with extreme simplicity, hassle-free and most importantly - extremely cost-effectively.

There are some businesses that could potentially benefit from companies that do SEO and SEM (Search Engine Marketing), but restaurants would do better to steer away from those and not waste their hard earned money.

Some people just don't get it

In talking to various restaurants about Takeout Online, it's interesting to note the vast variety of people I meet. People that are aggressive, shy, opinionated, quiet, people with accents, people who can't understand a word of English yet run restaurants somehow.

Mostly restaurant owners understand the many benefits of Takeout Online, yet some just don't seem to get it and even more importantly - they don't even seem to want to get it. Prior to the holidays we had a special where a restaurant could get a FREE web site, FREE setup on Takeout Online and if they choose to - they could have the entire benefit package for FREE... forever!

This was one of these situations where it was too good to be true (as always, for a limited time of course), but still... and yet some didn't want to sign up. There's a single legitimate reason not to sign up and that's where a restaurant has so much business that they just couldn't possibly handle any more. The unfortunate reality is that practically no restaurants fit such description, especially the smaller ones and all of them try to make more money by advertising, coupons etc.

So, the question (philosophically speaking) - why wouldn't a restaurant sign up for a service that offers them far greater efficiency in handling takeout orders, eliminates lost orders (according to statistics - 79% of phone takeout orders are lost, with 69% of those people going to a competitor instead), empowers the customers to order at their convenience & pace (while allowing people at the restaurant to do their job and not spend all kinds of time on the phone), provides an accurate & error-free order, certainly increases customer satisfaction, to name just some of the benefits?

The answer (logically speaking) totally eludes me. For whatever reason some people just don't get it... I'll leave it at that.