A long wait time for a table at a popular restaurant can be enough to push a customer to their second or third option instead. But would you be more inclined to wait if you could have drinks next door or browse the neighborhood’s stores and art galleries?
Chicago startup NextME wants to give you that option. In fact, the company has partnered with the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce to encourage you to do so.
At its core, NextME is a tool that helps restaurants manage their waitlists more effectively. It works by taking a diner’s name and phone number for a table reservation and texting them a link for checking how long the wait is going to be. The link also brings up menus, drink specials and other promotional material from the restaurant. Once a table opens up, NextME will text the customer again to let them know.
The ability to track of how much longer the wait is going to be frees customers to go check out the rest of the neighborhood. But while taking a turn playing host at a restaurant in order to see how the app works in action, co-founder John Yi noticed that some users remained glued to the wait time page of the app because they were worried they’d get skipped.
In those customers, Yi saw a perfect marketing opportunity: people who were already out and about, ready to spend money and looking to kill some time.
“If someone were waiting for an hour at the Bongo Room for a table, we partnered up with a local merchant next door to really market their business and include a map of how to get to that store while the diners are waiting in line,” said Yi. “That’s more foot traffic to nearby retail stores, and it’s also helping the restaurant out because it’s giving these waiting patrons something to do.”
Once this opportunity dawned on Yi, he and co-founder (and brother) James Yi decided to partner with the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce to drive traffic to local merchants throughout the neighborhood.
In addition to marketing, Yi said NextME has also started dabbling in data analytics. Through capturing data on actual wait times and comparing them to quoted wait times, the company is working with restaurants to make wait estimates more accurate. Accurate estimates are important, Yi said, because it significantly impacts customer retention.
“We’re giving a lot of businesses insight into their sales funnel before they arrive at their tables,” Yi said. “If a host under-quotes or over-quotes by too much, that can scare a customer away or piss them off.”
The app is currently in use at over 150 locations, primarily in Chicago, but also in Dallas and Washington D.C. The company’s Chicago customers include Lou Malnati’s, Kuma’s Corner and Le Pain Quotidien.
Yi said the company chose restaurants as its first vertical because he and his brother have experience in the foodservice industry, but that the company’s long-term expansion plans include beauty salons, doctor offices, auto shops and other businesses where customers experience significant wait times.
Image via NextME.
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