Avec Restaurant

Project Spec

Project objectives

The primary objective is create a ratings and review channel specifically for the waiters and to help give visibility to their performance.

Target audience / Member Value

Dining customers to help simplify their paying & rating process. And for waiters to better understand feedback given.

Project scope

• Create a consumer experience for ratings and review to be collected
• Having a robust management tool where waiters and managers are able to address feedback

Research

User interviews → Stakeholders

• Diners
• Wait Staff / Restaurant Management

Objectives

• [Diners] Understand dining expectations and drivers / barriers to providing reviews
• [Staff / Restaurant] Determine unmet needs in current process and opportunities for value-add

Key research findings

Remove barriers to reviewing by:

• Simplifying user interface
• Integrating into the dining process

Reduce reviewer burden by:

• Offering simple comment suggestions
• Providing 'rate only' option

Provide value to restaurant and staff by:

• Offering a snapshot of performance for easy access
• Highlighting key strengths / recognitions
• Offering broader support in terms of growth & future employment

Competitive analysis

Yelp

Positive: Ratings are easily accessible and color coded for easy interpretation · Simple feedback form that does not have additional prompts.
Negative: Forced feedback - unable to rate without providing details · No abuse prevention — anyone is able to provide reviews · Not integrated into the dining process; requires separate effort to sign in and provide review

Foursquare

Positive: Rating and feedback are split so users are able to give ratings easily without need to give extensive feedback.
Negative: No abuse prevention — anyone is able to provide reviews · Not integrated into the dining process; requires separate effort to sign in and provide review · Inconsistent rating icons can create confusion

Opentable

Positive: Ratings are by category and provides a comprehensive review for the restaurant · App is integrated into the experience and reviews are tied to those who dined there.
Negative: People are unlikely to go though the process as it takes too long to leave feedback

Ideation

Option 1 — Integration into Current Review Apps

Option 2 — Integration into the Dining Experience

Integrating into current review applications → Idea

Having the staff review integrated into the currently available review systems

Benefit — Less friction for the user to download a separate app, and helps to consolidate both reviews for the business and the staff

Digitizing the tipping & reviewing process → Idea

Tying the review to the tipping process

Benefit — The amount tipped is generally aligned to the performance of the staff

Benefit — Given staff performance is already being evaluated at this stage, the barrier to reviewing is lower at this point

User Flow

Complete user flow from all users

I mapped out the flows from each of the users, from the diner to the Restaurants to the staff. To give a complete picture of how the end to end experience would work

Consumer user journey

Entry point for users to start using the app · Diner experience walk-through

Ratings & tipping

Combining tips and ratings

This makes it easier to tip as what they felt about waiters performance generally aligned to amount of tips given, the user also had the option to either increase the tip amount or reduce it after, thus able to customize the tip without affecting the rating. They would be able to then either give a quick comment based on the rating they have chosen, or write an extended review post payment.

Key Features

• Easily tie in rating with amount tipped
• Customizable tip amount after rating
• Ability to leave quick comments based on rating
• Leave an extended review post tip

Different states depending on user input → Key Features

• Tip amount and 'quick comments' changes with experience rating
• Each state has its predefined value and 'quick comments'
• Ability to customize amount on each state

Staff performance overview → Management of feedback and tips

Right now comments and reviews given are very broad, they do not pinpoint to any particular waiter or area, this overview of each waiter would give them areas in which they are good at and places of improvement so they are able to take action on the feedback. Managers are also able to track these feedback to better manage their team.

Staff view → Key Features

• Ability to see overall performance
• Top comments from customers
• Feedback directly given to the waiter

Manager view → Key Features

• Overview of all staff's performance
• Manage and track staff's improvements
• Insights into all customers feedback