YOU MIGHT SAY OPENTABLE IS THE FINEST RESTAURANT BOOKING SYSTEM
BUT WE SAY IT IS AN IMPECCABLE BUSINESS IN THE INDUSTRY. YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE ANY PERCEPTION TO BEAT THIS GIGANTIC BUSINESS BUT WE HAVE…
Let’s go 10 years back in time….
Step 1: Make a list of preferred restaurants
Step 2: Visit the restaurants manually
Step 3: Ask the receptionist to book a table
Step 4: Sigh! Beg! Plead! to get a table (since all the tables are full for the day!)
Step 5: Visit another restaurant and repeat Step 3
Step 6: Repeat the procedure till a table is booked
Now, let’s go 5 years back in time
Step 1: Make a list of contact details of the preferred restaurants
Step 2: Dial the digits to talk to restaurants
Step 3: Ask the receptionist to book a table
Step 4: Sigh! Beg! Plead! to get a table (since all the tables are full for the day!)
Step 5: Call up another restaurant and repeat Step 3
Step 6: Repeat the procedure till a table is booked
Remember those days? Let’s talk about today now.
Step 1: Go to OpenTable Web app, Android app, or iOS app
Step 2: Search for your favorite restaurant and look for the table of your choice
Step 3: Book!
Quite easy, right?
Who would want to spare time to visit or contact the offline restaurants to get a table booked, simply when one can do it online with the help of just a few clicks!
Wondering how is it possible? OpenTable it is!
OpenTable as a business is becoming increasingly popular and this popularity is easily visible if you notice the rush of restaurateurs to be the successor of OpenTable by trying to develop a web application, an Android application, and an iOS application.
A table reservation is an arrangement made in advance to have a table available at a restaurant.
The online business model of OpenTable is simple: It matches people looking for a place to eat with restaurants that want customers, and also allows online reservations directly from restaurants’ own websites.
This way it helps fill the seats that would otherwise go empty when its lists available reservation times on its site.
In addition to this, restaurants get exposure on its site they might not receive by only hosting their own websites.
OpenTable does basically two things:
Sell restaurants tools to manage reservations.
Operates an online reservation service, both on its site and through partner sites. The reservations are free for consumers but restaurants pay a fee for reservations that go through OpenTable.
Some Prosperities for
Restaurants
- Offering Table reservations can be a good tool to gauge the increase in the demand for certain restaurants.
- ‘Steal the Customers’ strategy/ Competitive analysis.
- Improve Sourcing and Staffing on busy nights and optimizing them on slow nights for a better quality of service
Some Prosperities for
Customers
- Eliminates time consumption by waiting in the long lines at a restaurant.
- Will get the pre-decided table.
- Would not have to compromise on the restaurant one wishes to dine
- Better quality of service
- It the seats are unavailable for a particular restaurant, the customers can immediately look for another restaurant. The time is saved here to move to the other restaurant and the waiting time is eliminated here.
OpenTable – The Impeccable Business – You Should Have Too
Major Marketing Search Engine
When you develop a platform to accommodate different restaurants and diners, there is a high possibility of making up an organic marketing search engine.
Easy Acquisition of Service Providers
The platform helps to fill in the empty tables and generate steady business flow by recommending open tables to customers on the app. This way, the restaurateurs can get on-board easily.
Advanced Tools and Features
Certain tools like simple-to-use Electronic Reservation Book that handles reservation management, table management, guest recognition, and email marketing.
Ease to Customer Retention
Various rewards, coupons, gift cards, incentives, deals, etc. can be given to the diners in return to buy their loyalty to the platform.
No Fear of Masking Contacts
Once the diner books from the platform and he likes the service, he can choose to directly approach the restaurants. And believe me every restaurant today has got their own sites. In such cases, there are whopping big possibilities that the customers might go to the restaurant site.
To avoid such instances, the dining point system can be introduced which can build the loyalty of the customers for the platform
People & Restaurants Both Are Two Sides Of Coin And OpenTable Used This as Their Prosperous USP
The electronic reservation book is a computer terminal which comes with a software that allows online reservations, helps the Restaurateurs to manage their business, seating arrangements, staff assignments, and maintain a record and take notes like information on frequent customers.
The restaurants pay a one-time fee for installation and training costs apart from the monthly subscription fee.
Connect is the feature that is purely a web-based system that enables restaurants to accept online reservations using OpenTable. There are basically two programs in which the restaurants are connected with the platform:
The Feature Program
The member restaurants can pay some extra fees for getting featured on the OpenTable platform.When the restaurant opts to be featured as a ‘1000-point’ restaurant, which rewards diners with extra reward points for making reservations at certain times, OpenTable receives more per diner, approx. $7.50
The Spotlight Program
With the Spotlight program, OpenTable sells discount restaurant coupons to consumers. The revenues from coupon sales are split between the restaurant and OpenTable.
IN-DEPTH PLANNING OF OPENTABLE SIMILAR APP DEVELOPMENT WITH TROOTECH
Often businesses entail into the unknown. When it comes to understanding similar app development for their project, all it goes into is an abstract view. It is just so important phase in-between to decide the priorities on modules and features according to how the new, plans to run their business. We think below aspects are proven, tested and better to have:
AN MVP (MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT) TO EXPERIENCE OPENTABLE LIKE SUCCESS: USER APP
AN MVP (MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT) TO EXPERIENCE OPENTABLE LIKE SUCCESS: RESTAURANT APP
ADVANCED SET OF FEATURES TO BE AS COMPREHENSIVE AS OPENTABLE
AND YOU HAVE THE SCOPE TO BEAT OPENTABLE, INCORPORATE THESE FUNCTIONALITIES
THESE FACTORS ARE THE REASON OF OPENTABLE’S OUTSTANDING REVENUE MODEL
Selling Business Management Tools
OpenTable sells the restaurant management tools with the features, free setup, free live support, free updates, and free installation.
Subscription
OpenTable lays out subscription plans for the Restaurateurs, based on the number of bookings and number of restaurants owned.
Selling Discount Restaurant Feature
The Spotlight Program of OpenTable sells discount restaurant coupons to consumers. The revenues from coupon sales are split between the restaurant and OpenTable.
Featuring Fee
The member restaurants can pay extra fees to be featured on OpenTable to be a part of email marketing campaigns.
Fee for each Diner
From restaurants with the Connect system, OpenTable receives a fee for each diner who completes his reservation.
It receives $2.50 per diner who reserves through OpenTable’s site, and $0.25 per diner for reservations made through the restaurant’s site using OpenTable software.
DEVISE REVENUE LIKE OPENTABLE BY USING THESE FACTORS IN YOUR MODEL
Charge of Reservation
The customers can be charged with the reservation fees for every booking made.
Cancellation Charge
When anyone from the front stakeholders – Restaurateurs or the customers decide to cancel the booking made, a percentage of the amount in the form of cancellation fees is charged from them.
HERE’S THE MOST SCALABLE MOBILE TECHNOLOGY STACK TO BUILD APP LIKE OPENTABLE FOR YOU
Android Studio as Tool
Programming Language
Database
Backend Programming Language
Xcode as Tool
Swift as Frontend Programming Language
Database
Backend Programming Language
USE THESE MARKETING ASPECTS TO ACHIEVE AUDIENCE LIKE OPENTABLE
Reviews and Ratings
The customers can rate for the restaurants and can write reviews about their services. This way the other customers can view the ratings and reviews of the restaurants and can decide to try it out for once.
Social Media Platforms
The social media platforms are the best way to do the ‘Word of Mouth’ marketing. Social pages can be created; events can be organized in order to create awareness about the platform.
Promotional Offers
The customers can make use of the promo codes, referrals, deals and discounts to acquire more customers and retain them.
SMS and email
The customers can be targeted using the SMS and email marketing which properly addresses the features and functionality of the platform.
Loyalty Points
On the basis of what table the customer chooses, certain reward/ loyalty points are gifted to the repeated customers
