My “Reservations” with OpenTable’s Restaurants
I’m a big fan of OpenTable… most of the time. According to its website, OpenTable is “the world’s most popular website for making restaurant reservations online… as it provides a fast, efficient way to find available tables that meet desired criteria for cuisine, price and location at a specified time.”
Most of the time, OpenTable works like a charm for those of us who need to make last minute or special occasion restaurant reservations and don’t want to spend time hunting around for various restaurants’ names, locations, phone numbers, and availability. We’re impatient - since we want to “check-off” this task efficiently, we love that we can check/make/change reservations online with a few keystrokes.
OpenTable and its network of restaurants periodically lets me down due to some restaurants’ call-to-confirm policy. I can understand that holiday seating (e.g., New Year’s, Easter, etc.) require that you put down a credit card and call-to-confirm your reservation the day before the event… but I can’t understand why some of OpenTable’s participating restaurants actually call me to confirm an “everyday” dining occasion.
Given that I inititiated the reservation online, OpenTable should understand that I might want to continue the relationship with the restaurant online. Similar to some airlines, OpenTable should give me an option that allows me to choose how any confirmation follow-ups should be made (e.g., email, text, or phone call). I imagine that I’m not alone in hoping to avoid the “doctor’s office” routine of 1) listening to a restaurant’s voicemail message asking me to call back to confirm a reservation, and 2) having to actually call back the restaurant. The main reason I use OpenTable is to avoid making a call in the first place! Let’s hope OpenTable is open to some ideas on making the reservation and confirmation system even more efficient for both restaurant customers and restaurant employees.
Discussion Area - Leave a Comment