Twitter…..and Restaurants?
As every day goes by, I am seeing more and more individuals, corporations and bloggers extolling the virtues of twitter. I love the service, have been a user for a while now and derive great pleasure in the voyeuristic nature of the service. Recently, there has been an increase in companies using Twitter to manage their customer service. Comcast, Southwest and Jetblue spring to mind.
I think it is a great idea.
As a consumer interacting with the faceless nature of a corporation, Twitter allows you to get some human contact and allows you to get your voice heard – whether it is (for the most part) when you want to complain about a negative experience or if you want to share stories of positive interactions with businesses overall. Twitter should be part of every corporation’s outreach efforts – whether it be dealing with customer service or just talking about new products, services/features, or the corporation as a whole. God forbid we humanize business and have accountability that at least can be resolved to a Name (or Twitter name).
I’ve been thinking recently about what other ways that people or organizations can use Twitter to outreach and engage and I stumbled upon one way which I would love to see and use.
What about having restaurants set up Twitter accounts?
Allow customers to talk about their experience – the food, service, their general opinions before, during and after a meal. What better way to get a good pulse on good eats and good times by getting input from real customers as they wine and dine? Restaurants could use this information to get valuable feedback. Sure restaurants have ‘feedback cards’. They’ve had them for years and I can’t remember the last time I filled one out. Restaurants could put their twitter profile at the bottom of their menu - those in the know would start using it. What’s the price of an extra line of text on a menu?
Chefs, bartenders and management could use this Twitter account not only to gauge the general happiness of their customers, but also talk about the intricacies of the business, their stories and give a general sense of what is going on. I think it is a great way to promote the business and deal with unhappy customers. One thing I learned about working at restaurants was that with a little bit of effort, a large mea culpa and a free round of drinks or comp’d appetizer you could make your fierecest critics your strongest advocates.
If my favorite restaurants had twitter accounts I would follow them. I’m gonna suggest this to some of my favorite restaurants and restauranteurs in Washington DC.
Thoughts?
