Background

F&B has always been a very competitive industry in Hong Kong. To remain competitive, restaurants need to keep on updating their marketing strategy, and improve their food and service quality. Customer feedback has always been the best reference, some restaurants collect customer feedback via Face-to-Face, Online Review, and Secret Customer Service. These methods have a good track record, but in this smartphone and big data era they are not fast and cost effective enough to help restaurants prevail in the competition.

Challenges for collecting customer feedback

1. Expensive and lack of resource

Most restaurants do not have enough or extra manpower to interview every customer and monitor the performance of all branches. Also, secret customer service are too expensive to be a routine.

2. Inaccurate and difficult to analyze

Face-to-Face interview is a good method to collect real-time and direct feedback from customer. However, customer is usually shy to share their true feelings and it is difficult for the staff to record all the comments and digitalized them for statistical analysis.

3. Cannot engage with takeaway customers

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the popularity of delivery platforms, food delivery has become the mainstream. However, it also makes it almost impossible to engage with customers and collect their feedback.

4. False online review

There are a lot of malice false reviews on online platforms from competitors. It is very time consuming and difficult to distinguish true and false review. Therefore, relying on online review as a reference may result a wrong business decision and waste of time.

Solution – How Votap solves the problem

Votap - an online social platform designed for collecting feedback, is a one stop solution for restaurant to engage with customers, marketing (see example) and to drive repeating sales

1. QR Code for engagement

Invite customer to vote or complete the survey with a QR code on Sticker, Poster, or Leaflet. You could even incentivize your customers with an instant reward. By using this method, you could reach and collect feedback from all customers across all the branches without extra manning.

QR code for i.teeea

2. Real time, True voice

By using smartphone and QR Code, your customer can comfortably share their honest feedback anonymously. This could help you collect direct feedback from customer in real-time and improve your service instantly.

3. Connect with customer from anywhere

To reach food delivery customers from remote, you can add a QR Code on your meal box or on a leaflet, so you can engage with your customer and collect their feedback even you cannot see them.

leaflet for i.Tasty

4. Continuous improvement and Big data

By using Votap, you can engage with your customers from your social media page, restaurant and even from takeaway simultaneously. Also, you can continuously collect their feedback and data in 365 days, 24/7. These empower you to build your big data, so to continuously evaluate your performance and keep improving.

Case Studies – Restaurants in Hong Kong Science Park

i.Tasty – Provided suggestion to improve the tea set

Earlier in June 2021, we have conducted a customer survey for i.Tasty to collect customer feedback on food quality. As proposed from the above, we had shared the survey as a QR Code on sticker and displayed on the table, cashier, and leaflet.

i.Tasty has received dozens of responses and most of those are about the food quality of the tea set. Though, i.Tasty had noticed that there was a problem with their tea set from the sales record, but they did not know the reason. This survey has helped i.Tasty identify the problems and also provided suggestions.

i.teeea – Direction for business growth

Also in June, we have conducted a market survey for i.teeea to collect customer opinion for a new shop location. Similarly, we shared the survey as a QR Code on sticker and displayed on the table and cashier. To increase the response rate and promote business, i.teeea has incentivized the customers with a free drink in next meal.

Majority of the respondents suggested i.teeea to open a new shop in Sha Tin and Mongkok. In addition, they have also shared their feedback on food and service quality. These provided i.teeea a clear direction on business development.

Summary

i.Tasty and i.teeea have proved that communicate with customer and collect their feedback is not only for Michelin Star and chains restaurants. With Votap, even small and independent restaurant can engage with all the customers in low cost.

These examples have also proven that Votap can help them collect feedback directly from customers, so to solve problem and make the right business decision. In long run, Votap can help restaurant remains competitive by improving customer engagement, better understanding customer needs and driving repeating sales.