I’m trying something new for package ordering. Most of the time our frequent customers sends simple orders like Two large margarita pizza and two Coke. That kind of orders can simply received from twitter. That have also social benefits since supporting such services gets attention from young customers and their friends will see these tweets and that may create a buzz about your restaurant.
Here is the POC of my first try.
@sambaposemre (customer) sends a tweet to @emreeren (restaurant)
That displays a popup on SambaPOS
Since @sambaposemre is a registered customer it switches to Twitter screen when I click on popup.
After clicking popup order displayed on twitter time line and customer found on customer list. I can create the ticket or if something not understood I can simply call customer to receive details.
I’ll be happy to hear your ideas about that before releasing the module.
@emre
This can cause a lot of problems.
Customer should know what is possible to order and what not
If you could make a Facebook app with possible restaurant menu
So that the restaurant can define what can and can not order.
So that customers only remains to choose among the options.
No it won’t cause problems. A lot of customers will prefer just to tweet their order to you instead of navigating through other restaurants online ordering stuff just to spot their choice between endless options. As I’ve stated this might not be suitable for first time ordering customers since they would like to see what you have but for frequent customers it might be a nice alternative.
When wisely used it might be powerful. For example you can send your followers such posts near lunch time.
hey @emre i just wanna share my thoughts about this. first i love the pizza name.
second i personally think if adopted this can be a very good idea, everyone will seem a little reluctant because it new and people like tried and proven things. but this can be new innovation towards simplicity and ease. also if i may, since your are thinking of adapting it anyhow. and it will monitor a stream from the internet(like twitter feed), can you make it a very flexible code, or release an API to implement a very similar feature. because i have seen something on a website in uk before i cant remember, they just let you order and no payment is made online, instead the order is sent and a ticket number is given and the order-er is called to verify the order.’
all in all, what I’m saying is ideas like yours are what push new innovations not recreating and following only the tried and true ideas. if you do release it and make it a module, people who want it can buy it and people who don’t wont, pretty simple. and if it cause too many problems the module can be simply uninstalled. also i think you gotta charge more for the modules man. they’re too cheap. (<— my opinion, anyone would love to support someone like you)
@mxood thank you very much for sharing your ideas. Implementing same idea for websites might be a nice feature too. There is a big expanding market for mobile ordering because of the raising interest on it and we’ll also release our mobile ordering solutions. However too little people understands how it is important to make it simple for customers. Especially on mobile phones. Most people thinks filling it with screens and options increases the chance to a order but I have different ideas. We should make customers think less, click less and always make the best choice. I believe we can implement a really great solution. This idea is just a beginng step for it.
Yes modules are cheap for now since we still continue improving it but as new features added I’ll increase prices for new purchases.
Yes it is possible however a hardware (a phone app or serial GSM Modem) is needed to receive SMS messages. We may think about more after twitter implementation.
Yes I thought about it and I think it would be nice.
By the way
When I connect a mobile phone modem
I have a modem port on the computer is not enough to receive SMS messages?
Yes, is a great idea, but for the implementation may be you must take some considerations.
For example, You must think about this few questions for define the protocol for the functionality:
a) Which Item key will customer use for make the order from tweeter ,
Item Number or Item Description ?,
because you must search in the Item Master data table for make the Order, so may be could be difficult for the customer remember the item number or write exact description of the item, because normally all item descriptions looks very similar only few differences, so for search the item using the Descripcion as the search Key could be few difficult for implement and for customer remember.
I dont think its meant to automatically select items from menu. I think the way emre explained was that for example. You are getting off work and you just want a greek salad with chicken. The u simply tweet it and the waiter or person at cash will have an idea of what you are ordering. To try to take orders by parsing their tweet will lead to many many problems. And the whole idea is to bring simplicity into the picture not force identical product descriptions and names to be tweeted.
This idea is great for quick, small painless orders. This idea is will probably not be for making coporate order etc
I just want to add that for example our pizzeria has pickup specials for pizza and is our most ordered item. Its always same price. Almost every customer knows these prices and on the phone they just say i want to order 16’’ pickup all meat and then they give thier number and thats it. So they could simply tweet that and will workout and could be a the next big thing that brings back regular customers due to the attractive and hip if you want to call it ordering system.
@mxood thank you very much for the explanation. I’m exactly trying to bring an alternative to the case you’ve mentioned. I can see most restaurants wants to benefit from social networks but again most of them doesn’t know how to do that. That’s why some of them pays for worthless “social media integrations” that does nothing other than spamming customers. By using automation, promotion and social network features we can build a nice experience for our customers.
Customers always have different options and who remembered first wins. Twitter apps already have every needed features to connect people so we should benefit from this.
I think may be is possible each customer can order items using HashTags, so you can in the Item master table include a new field HashTag unique to each item, so you can tweet the different hashTag menu or when you have specials, you only tweet the message to all of your customer about the special using the HashTag of each item in the special, so customer only have to retweet using the HashTag of the item they want order, so you can then make the order automatically using the hashtag as the key.
May be this could be an idea for expand the tweeter order module in the future.
I think these are two main points which make the idea great, as @emre said its not ideal for new customers but when their friends see what they order they think of your business and even if they like the sound of it, can retweet the order…
I can imagine, coming to dinner time, see a friend ordering via twitter, and you think actually pizza sounds like a plan
I doubt it would make or break any business in terms of functionality but a great marketing/awareness booster
I believe we should focus on that more…
