Grocery delivery apps provide convenience for customers, but a lot of headaches for restaurants, like commissions of up to 40% and very few tools to build customer loyalty. Singapore-based Tablevibe aims to help restaurants reduce their reliance on third-party delivery apps, helping them get more direct orders and returning customers. The startup is part of the current batch from Y Combinator, which will host its Demo Day at the end of this month.
The founding team of Tablevibe includes two former Google employees: Jeroen Rutten, formerly head of product strategy for Google Search in APAC, and Sneep, who was responsible for the go-to-market strategy of the app development and led large sales teams. They are joined by Guido Caldara, lead teacher at Coding Bootcamp Le Wagon and Chief Technology Officer of Tablevibe.
The idea for Tablevibe came after Rutten, the CEO, visited a restaurant in Singapore that uses paper feedback forms.
“We thought if they were using a paper feedback form it would actually be a lot of trouble, like putting all the data in an Excel spreadsheet,” he told TechCrunch. “How does the restaurant owner get actionable feedback based on data in an Excel spreadsheet?”
The team started working on the first version of Tablevibe with simple Google forms for dine-in customers and Google Data Studio dashboards and tested it with three restaurants a few months before the COVID-19 hit. They found that using Tablevibe instead of paper forms increased the response rate up to 26 times and also had the benefit of attracting more repeat customers by giving them an incentive to fill out surveys.
Then the pandemic struck and restaurants suddenly had to switch to deliveries. The team kept the same idea behind their feedback forms, but started using QR codes affixed to take-away packaging. The QR codes (mostly in the form of stickers so that food and beverage companies don’t have to order new packaging) also provide an incentive for customers to scan them and fill out a survey – but the discount or free item cannot be redeemed from delivery apps Third-party suppliers, only through direct orders from the restaurant.
Restaurants can customize surveys, but around 80% use Tablevibe’s templates, which are quick to fill out as most questions only ask for a one to five star rating (there is also an optional form for customers to leave their opinions) . Customers enter their name and email address, then rate the food and atmosphere (for dinner). For delivery, customers are also asked which app they used.
Tablevibe is integrated with Google Reviews. So if someone gives the restaurant a high rating, they will be asked if they want to publish it. You also have the option to follow your Facebook or Instagram profile.
For dine-in customers, Tablevibe mainly works with F&B companies that have multiple venues including Merci Marcel and Lo and Behold Group. In the delivery survey, most users are smaller restaurants with one location. It also serves cloud kitchens like CloudEats in the Philippines.
“As a restaurant, you want to own and develop your customer relationships,” said Sneep, Tablevibe’s chief operating officer. “The first part is knowing who your customers are, what they experienced, and how to contact them. Here’s how we can help you. The second part is the expansion of a customer relationship, which we achieve through a reward, but only if a customer orders more directly from a restaurant. “
Customers have generated over 25,000 reviews on Tablevibe to date, which provides the company with data to determine what incentives get someone to scan a restaurant’s QR code and take a survey.
Tablevibe founders say it can deliver a return on investment of more than 100x to its customers. For example, Merci Marcel ran a review and found it had a 103x ROI based on the number of customers who claimed incentives, the average order value, the number of people who got a 5-star Google rating and how much more business these reviews have left their venues.
The startup plans to expand into other English-speaking markets, focusing first on Northern Europe and later this year on North America. In addition to Singapore, it is already used by customers in the Philippines, the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain and Portugal.
Rutten said Tablevibe plans to build its development team with the goal of becoming a “sales force for restaurants” that can help them build engagement, collect data and turn it into useful insights through delivery or dinner.
“Our roadmap has two levers – on the one hand to get more data and on the other hand to provide more information,” he said. “We are working on API integrations so that Tablevibe can be integrated into point-of-sale systems. Second, there is a need to get more publicly available data from sources like Google Reviews. We’ll also be developing other marketing features to leverage customer databases so companies can email out new restaurant openings, etc. ”Finally, Tablevibe also plans to use AI to help restaurants determine exactly what to do improve the customer experience, e.g. B. to change a menu item.