Customer Profile
Brisbane has a lucrative exclusive dining culture plus a taste for Japanese cuisine; the two combine in SONO, a pair of boutique Japanese restaurants in the city’s most desirable districts.
But nothing can be taken for granted in this competitive environment, and the restaurant makes sure it’s consistently providing great service to win repeat customers and get good online reviews to remain successful.
The challenges
Competitive industry
Diners seeking great experiences often choose to read independent online reviews before visiting a restaurant’s own website. Every disgruntled customer review sows a seed of doubt and can make customers look elsewhere. If customers could vent any disappointment directly to the restaurant and the restaurant responded satisfactorily, many bad reviews could be prevented
Customer feedback
SONO also wanted to receive regular feedback from customers to ensure it was delivering the best possible products and service to its customers. Good feedback is just as important as bad, as it can be used to gauge when the whole dining package is being delivered. Most customers, whether happy or disappointed, don’t give feedback one way or another, so a nudge to respond is essential.
As a business we had no way to track feedback until we started working with Oxygen8. In a short period of time, we started to receive valuable information for both the owner and all members of staff.
Nicolle Toohey, Event and Marketing Manager at SONO
Solution
Timely SMS inspires actionable feedback
Armed with the knowledge that SMS has open rates of around 98%, Oxygen8 knew that with appropriate messaging, SMS could provide, fast, honest opinions from customers, pre-empting negative reviews and attracting valuable feedback for the kitchen and front-of-house staff.
Oxygen8 set up a system using the Engage platform that asked customers for snapshot reviews the day after a visit. Anything less than 100% satisfaction would result in a reply from the restaurant with a response to satisfy the customer.
All completed responses would include vouchers and special offers to encourage future visits, and this fact was advertised before completion.
Feedback steers better decision-making
Oxygen8 and the Engage platform helped SONO to take important information and feedback from its clients, both negative and positive. By monitoring the level of service received, a feedback loop is initiated that consistently negative experiences to try to prevent.
Response rates vastly improved
Before Oxygen8’s intervention, SONO had to make do with email feedback forms that had an open rate of 29%. Oxygen8 boosted this to almost 100% thanks to the medium of SMS, targeted messaging and valuable customer offers given to respondents.
Oxygen8 are amazing to work with. We have learned a great deal through working with them, and now understand the parts of our business that are doing well and the areas of the business that we need to focus on moving forward.
Nicolle Toohey, Event and Marketing Manager at SONO
Oxygen8’s easy-to-use, cloud-based solutions focus on results, giving clients performance management software that integrates mobile, e-mail, voice and payments. From sending bulk SMSs to custom API integrations into your CRM application, we make marketing automation simple. Visit www.oxygen8.com for more information.