OpenTable is one of the leading providers of online reservations, seating 12 million diners a month through their online booking platform across approximately 28,000 restaurant establishments.
This platform allows users to seamlessly make reservations, view menu options, and post reviews after their meal.
OpenTable provides access to an immense community of people from all over the United States in addition to Japan, Germany, Canada, Mexico and the UK. The size of the OpenTable community and its intuitive user experience has the potential to massively influence your online reputation.
Here are a few best practices to use in managing your OpenTable account:
Copy and paste your best reviews in an email and forward them to featured@opentable.com, try to update this feature as often as possible.
- OpenTable’s featured reviews function is an extremely powerful marketing tool that will allow you to present your best reviews directly to the OpenTable user base. Your featured reviews are most effective when they are up to date and reflect the most recent guest's experiences at your restaurant.
Keep your OpenTable specials current and at a minimum of 3 features to hide the 1,000-point offer.
- OpenTable’s 1000-point offer to its users pushes guests to your restaurant and reduces the possibility of no-shows and cancellations. However, it is much more beneficial to your restaurant to have your own promotions and deals listed in its place.
When replying to reviews click the “Viewed” box after reading and responding to a review.
- This simple practice will keep you organized and efficient when you are replying to reviews. The raw number of reviews your property will generate may be overwhelming at first. Identifying your reviews as viewed will streamline your management response process.
Put the emails in the Front of House in OpenTable to easily organize your email lists and build a reliable database for future marketing campaigns.
- An accurate and complete database of guest information is key to successful email marketing campaigns. OpenTable’s computerized Front of House solution will allow you to easily collect guest information for your own reference.
Specials and reviews fall off your OpenTable account every 90 days, so this review site is an ongoing process that requires consistent attention.
- Every 90 days reviews and specials are archived in the OpenTable platform; therefore, it is of the utmost importance that you diligently manage this platform to ensure your content is accurate, relevant, and available to your OpenTable community.
For additional insight into OpenTable’s Front of House, solutions click here
OpenTable Reviews
Participation by the restaurants in OpenTable’s review program is voluntary. E-mail review forms are sent only to people who made a reservation through OpenTable and were actually seated at the restaurant. This is intended to eliminate the problem of phony reviews – either people writing reviews who never really ate at the restaurant or disgruntled diners who submit several negative reviews about the same meal.
Reviews can also be removed for being too crass, off-topic, or unhelpful. Users can sort the reviews for individual restaurants by date, rating, and length. The default is to place "featured reviews" at the top of the page — reviews suggested by the restaurant staff or chosen by OpenTable’s moderators, essentially guaranteeing that they’ll be favorable. Restaurants are not able to publicly respond to reviews on OpenTable. However, users, all of whom remain anonymous, can choose to receive a response privately by e-mail.
OpenTable Integrates with Facebook
Facebook’s recent partnership with OpenTable has created a seamless and efficient way to make a reservation, browse photos, and view recent posts at a Facebook restaurant page. Integrating these two platforms presents yet another means for restaurateurs to engage with guests and create a unique dining experience.
This feature will be specifically available on Facebook’s Mobile app, therefore the moment you get off work, you can find a restaurant using your “Nearby Places” function, find a restaurant, message your friends, book a reservation for 4 and view any recent entrees or promotions the restaurant has shared on their Facebook page while you’re on the way to dinner. Although there are no posts, updates, or sharing options that come with making your reservation, the user does not have to be a member of OpenTable to reserve their seats. Therefore, this opens up reservation opportunities for about 20,000 U.S. dining establishments to the entire Facebook user-base. Essentially the overall dining experience for a potential guest begins on their mobile device, as opposed to when your host initially greets them.The integration of these two platforms has created a much more interactive and actionable restaurant Facebook page. With this in mind, it is important that you make the most of your Facebook platform by diligently updating your restaurant page and engaging with your fans.