In tandem with the launch, we’ve extended the La Tasca eCRM system so that customers can register their card online, or request one to be sent to them via the post. Whilst marketing staff can add the latest rewards and promote them via the website. The eCRM system provides detailed reports on usage along with integration for email marketing. In what we believe to be a first for the sector, we have also integrated the eCRM system with Torex’s till system, this integration enables La Tasca to track customers on their entire journey; from making an enquiry online to seeing what they ate, drank, and spent on their visit. Because the eCRM system has a fully integrated email marketing suite, La Tasca will be using this data to send more personalised, relevant promotions to customers based upon their engagement history.

You can find out more by visiting www.latasca.co.uk/loyalty

For example, think about your user journey with John Lewis online, it’s effectively a one-way journey of finding the product you’d like, reading the reviews, help documentation or other supporting collateral then adding said item to your basket and completing the transaction.

But for many service-based markets the options between ‘buy now’ and ‘buy later’ are confused, as you may have some queries, or be looking to ‘show interest’ before committing to a transaction. For example, if you’re planning a holiday and want to ask the reservation staff to ‘hold’ a particular room in a hotel or, if you’re requesting a sample of a product prior to making a bigger purchase decision, or making a party enquiry at a pub. What separates these funnel conversions from simple, transactional ones is the need to have a dialogue with the customer. What I mean by this, is that, there are several steps that may need to happen offline before the customer converts, and these need to be taken into account when measuring the conversion funnel as they can be the key differentiator for customers between buying or not..

So how can dialogue be a key differentiator? Well, consider this, if you’re thinking about going out for a steak dinner and there are two restaurants next door to each other, they’re both around the same price, both serve great steaks cooked to perfection, and both will ensure you’re served promptly and efficiently, which one will you choose? The answer, is probably the one that you feel more of an emotional engagement with. And this emotional engagement will be derived from your experience with their brand, whether this be via their staff, website or other touch point. And what will make that experience special is the restaurant being able to show that they care about you as an individual. It could be the restaurant manager coming over for a chat, or the nature of the email communications you receive from them, the winning restaurant will be the one that engages more effectively with the individual.

The issue for many service-led businesses, is therefore, not how to maximize transactions but how to ensure that enquiries are captured, tracked and managed to ensure that the maximum conversions are obtained. Yet online many websites still do not consider this process as part of a holistic customer experience and manage enquiries and transactions entirely separately, leading to a confused customer experience, lack of dialogue and a loss of management control over the conversion process. For example, many restaurants use the Livebookings or OpenTable embedded booking widgets to take reservations, but these are pure transactional systems, where the customer can only book or not, and mean that customers who want to enter into a dialogue need to ring or email the restaurant directly, leading to a poorer customer experience when compared to restaurant groups who enable customers to make enquiries and reservations via the same process.

So, if quality, service and value are all equal between competitors, the winner will be the one that leverages the experience most effectively to generate emotional engagement, and online that means allowing customers to enter into a dialogue with you. The trick is to ensure that all your customer dialogues are managed and converted as efficiently as possible, and that you can easily report on the progress of the enquiries through the sales funnel. For many small businesses the tracking and reporting on this data is quite simple as the customer base is quite small, but for bigger businesses, with multiple offerings, locations and customer touch points the data becomes more complex as the relationships become ever more entwined, and for that you’ll need a great eCRM system.

For each venue website we added a landing page with content-led collateral highlighting its suitability and the various add-on options available, customers were then invited to make a party enquiry, where they could identify the date and time, and select their preferred menu (and budget), select their add-ons such as Canapes or Ice Sculpture, before sending it to the central eCRM system. We also included a call-back facility, plus the option for customers to send a ‘simple’ enquiry, where they were looking for more guidance on the options available.

The result of these changes was a 50% increase in the number of online enquiries generated compared to the same period in 2010, at the same time the conversion rate for the Christmas enquiry process increased significantly, indicating that whilst traffic increased, it was the UX improvements that ensured a higher number of customers submitted enquiries.

We’re obviously very pleased with these results, the Christmas period offers a significant turnover boost for retail leisure operators, and maximising returns is all the more important during tough economic times.

Whilst sad that SquareMeal didn’t win a top prize, we’re pretty happy with being short-listed as it meant they felt SquareMeal ‘noteworthy and of a high quality’, only 2 other sites were short listed in the  ‘Food and Beverage’ section.

We send approximately 40 million emails a year for La Tasca, the majority of these are sent by the marketing staff at La Tasca using the integrated email marketing suite in the eCRM system we have developed for them. We have recently re-designed their email template to reflect the relaunched brand. Whilst it’s too early to be definitive about the results the improvements have delivered, the statistics so far indicate a 100% improvement in their online conversion for reservation enquiries.

With over 20,000 products and a complex product catalogue, the Harwin websites display graceful, intuitive navigation, friendly, helpful assistance and efficient conversion funnels. Alongside the product data we have implemented language specific landing pages, SEO optimised landing pages around particular products and information rich application pages that detail how their inter-connect devices are deployed in a variety of market sector

One of the principal differences for Harwin Asia Pacific is how the company’s products are used by manufacturers. In Asia Pacific Harwin’s electrical connectors are deployed primarily in consumer oriented devices (such as smart phones and PDAs) whilst in Europe and the USA they’re used in defence, aeronautics and space. To reflect this targeting we’ve created a new application section which reflects the local market where typical applications are examined with a custom ‘Haynes Manual’ styled approach.

The call was from a big family-owned corporation in Egypt that was interested in getting us to quote for putting their restaurant portfolio online. Whilst we’ve never worked with a client in Egypt, we do have many clients in the retail leisure sector and so I asked which of our client’s had prompted the referral. Strangely, they referenced a site for a restaurant called Aqua (www.aqua.com.hk) which in the footer has a big note saying ‘Designed by Urban Monk’. What galled me about this was that not had they managed to confuse the name ‘Aardvark’ with ‘Urban Monk’ but that he thought that we would be involved in what we consider to be, the most awful of websites.

Aqua Splash Screen

The Aqua website represents everything that’s truly terrible about many restaurant websites; built entirely in Flash with a pointless splash screen, the ambient music, the menu hidden behind the navigation, social media links that are not links but just images and more. To be fair to Aqua, I’ve not visited their bar but I’d certainly hope that they don’t play the same ambient elevator music throughout the day. Their website is awful because it’s trying hard to generate the atmosphere of being ‘cool’, and completely failing to recognise that customers are visiting it’s website to try to find out where it is, make a reservation, see what’s on the menu and see some pictures.

The subject of restaurant websites seems to particularly gall people and there are several sites where their awfulness is discussed in depth by interested parties. A good starting place to begin your journey on reading customer angst is at the Guardian whose Tony Naylor posted an article back in May 2010 about restaurant websites; whilst his article is interesting it is the 64 comments that hold the gems with comments like;

Pretty doesn’t interest me, but simple does. I can tolerate a website that hasn’t been redesigned for five years as long as I can find what I want to know

Stupid Flash movie slideshows of arty photos of a table setting, a wine bottle, some bowls of spices (Indian restaurants love this), some fresh ingredients — ARGH.

I tend not to read chef’s texts about what inspires them, how they sniff the soil and that tells them what to cook, I want to know – do I like the look of the menu, when can I eat there and how much does it cost?

I genuinely think it’s remarkable how many restaurants have pointless flash, horrible music, streaming photos etc, or – almost as bad – force you to download pdfs of their menus. Why can’t they keep it simple and limited to a couple of pages?

Following on from the Guardian’s article (where comments are now closed) comes a Tumblr site called ‘Never Said About Restaurant Websites’ – a slightly tongue in cheek slant on restaurant websites and the common gripes that users have about them. A small selection of comments that made me chuckle include:

Dinner is much more fun when I have no idea if you’ll be open when I get there.

It is so cool that your online drinks menu simulates the experience of flipping through a 20-page cocktail menu book, rather than simply listing all the cocktails on one page (booo-ring!)! The interactive experience was well worth the 5-minute wait for the Flash to load.

I want this music to play forever.

I love clicking on your “Events” and “Specials” button to find that it hasn’t been updated since 2007. I was JUST asking myself, “what was the special in March, 4 years ago?

Can you tell me where I can locate gigantic photos of prime rib, goat cheese appetizer, sweet potato fries and white truffle mousse? I can’t find your hours, address or directions, so I’m going to print out your professionally-styled stock food images and peruse them while eating my sandwich at home tonight.

Smart phones are probably just a passing fad, so when you think about it, your restaurant is actually ahead of its time by going out of its way to make a website I can’t possibly navigate with a portable device.

I love that location and hours aren’t on your website. It’s far more interesting to me that your restaurant remain a state of mind rather something physical I can visit.

Most recently, Farhad Majoo wrote a piece for Slate (August 2011) entitled ‘Why are restaurant websites so horrifically bad’; he refers to a San Francisco restaurant called ‘Fleur De Lys’ and it’s truly awful website, the opening screen of which has an animation of the chef’s autograph. As Farhad points out ‘the first thing I want to know when choosing a restaurant is that the Chef can sign his own name’. Similar to the Aqua website, the Fleur De Lys starts pumping royalty free ambient tunes to give the impression to those around you in your office that you’re looking at an inappropriate (ahem) website.

Farhad puts forward the proposition that the reason why they’re so bad is because ‘Restaurant sites are the product of restaurant culture. These nightmarish websites were spawned by restaurateurs who mistakenly believe they can control the online world the same way they lord over a restaurant.’ He quotes a partner at a New York design agency who says ‘ People in restaurants have a sense that they want to create an entertainment experience online—that’s why disco music starts, that’s why Flash slideshows open. They think they can still play the host even here online.’

So, what should restaurant websites do if they want to do it properly? Here’s a simple list:

1. Keep it simple – no flash, no enormous downloads and unnecessary animations
2. Keep it helpful – present information that’s accessible across all browsers and devices
3. Keep it engaging – good photos, promotions and social media links
4. Convert customers – with online reservation systems and newsletter sign-ups
5. Keep it up to date – no old events or promotions, please.

The major UK restaurant chains are now getting it really right online with integrated email, social media and web campaigns, and that makes it harder for the independent restaurants to compete.

Thankfully the Egyptian revolution put an end to the enquiry and we’ve not heard anything since. Certainly, if there was a revolution amongst digital agencies then it would be the people behind the awful restaurant sites that would be first up against the wall in our opinion (figuratively speaking of course!).

Finally, you might like to take a look at this humorous diagram about what people are looking for from restaurant websites: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/restaurant_website

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