Admit it. You’ve committed drive-by check-ins.
In the pursuit of points, badges, and political klout, you’ve claimed “here” when really you were over there. One check-in away from receiving a mayoral perk, you thought- what’s the difference? If you’ve ever used Facebook places, FourSquare, Gowalla or any of the many location based services (LBS), you probably noticed being close to a destination is enough to claim ‘here-ship.’
Restaurants and business owners spend large chunks of their advertising budget to build customer loyalty on the many LBS platforms, but the loyalty they receive is based on a game. Where there’s a game, there’s going to be cheating. Even if the check-in game is played fairly, all a customer needs to do is walk through the restaurant’s doors to check in. What good are customers who check-in without checking out to restaurants? Not much.
That’s one of the problems that Nick Terkay, Patrick Meyn, and Eugene Revzin, set out to solve with SilvrSpoon, a new mobile restaurant platform that partners with restaurants to offer loyalty programs based on real purchases.
“SilvrSpoon is about building a great patron—restaurant relationship – not line skipping, not an instant gratification deal, not a catch-all, (Not) “I was there, reward me” said Terkay.
By partnering with restaurants, SilvrSpoon integrates their technology throughout the whole dining process and is used by both the restaurant and customer in the transaction. Upon being seated at a participating restaurant, patrons scan a table-specific QR code allowing them to access the menu, place orders and later request the check from their phone. Orders are displayed throughout the restaurant at POS stations on tablet devices enabling the waitstaff to confirm items and get them to you as soon as possible.
Not only does it save time waiving down a waitress for another round, SilvrSpoon’s in-app order capabilities allows restaurants to allocate loyalty points based on the amount of the total purchase. That means your Cheeseburger will score more points than your friends side salad. Smart right?
And what do you get with all of these points? Well, depends on the restaurant. Each restaurant creates their own reward system based on the patrons points. On particular slow days restaurants can use SilvrSpoon to create a daily deal for loyal patrons, high rollers or for any past customers.
SilvSpoon doesn’t want to just offer points and deals. Instead they aim to help restaurants enhance the entire dining experience through their app’s personalized taste preferences and feedback insights. When users download SilvrSpoon, they setup taste preferences within the app including likes, dislikes, & food allergies. All of this data helps SilvSpoon and the wait staff make personalized dish suggestions. In addition to taste profiles, restaurants can see the user’s name and the meal they ordered on their last visit. In a sense, SilvrSpoon wants to help every restaurant be Cheers… where everybody knows your name, beer, and how you like your steak.
“SilvrSpoon not only captures your attendance, but what you had to eat and drink, what you thought of it and what you wanted to share about your experience,” said Terkay. “We aim to increase the number of reasons someone would stay loyal to an establishment outside of simply rewarding them with free stuff. In SilvrSpoon you can earn those loyalty rewards too, but when it comes to eating and drinking there’s much more at stake than a cheaper meal.”
And what’s at stake is the dining experience. Restaurants sell an experience – of which the meal is only one of many variables. A dining experience not only depends on the dish ordered, but on the demeanor of the wait staff, personal taste preferences, wait time etc… In most cases, restaurants look to antiquated comment cards for insight for improving the customer’s experience.
When a customer requests the check through SilvrSpoon, they are prompted to rate their experience & leave comments. In return for their feedback, they receive loyalty points. Unlike more standard feedback methods, feedback is then tied to the customer’s profile, table, server, and ticket. SilvrSpoon says these insights will help restaurants better understand their customers and help pinpoint strengths and weaknesses.
I know .. a lot of functions. So just in case you didn’t catch all of that:
Or if you want to give SilvrSpoon a try, check out one of the participating Chicago restaurants: Mad River Bar & Grille, MoonShine, and Waffels.
