Restaurant Challenge
While there are many ways to rate and review restaurants, these are not focused on evaluating individuals servers. Design an experience where diners can submit positive comments and constructive suggestions for the wait staff, and servers can use this feedback to both improve and help to secure new employment. Provide a high-level flow and supporting wire frames.
The Diner's Experience
Above is the designed solution for diners to leave server specific feedback:
Search for the restaurant in Google (Maps is shown below but this works in search as shown in later comps)
See your last visit from Google Timeline and access a server specific review link
Provide a service specific star rating and server comments, there is a gentle reminder to provide server name
Feel good knowing you are helping servers improve and be recognized
Be delighted you are improving your Local Guide Score
The Server’s Experience
Above is the designed solution for servers to access feedback:
Server searches for place of employment in Google Search and sees new reviews
Server clicks on contextual link to access My Business dashboard
Server visits All Server Reviews
Server has access to share link to share with potential employer, behaves the same as sharing a Google Review does
Server has access to copy comment link to add reviews to resume (not in GIF, but pictured below)
Server favorites a great review they received, then visits the favorites tab to see filter in action
Server returns to all reviews and clicks on bolded name to filter by popular mentions
Server can invite other servers easily through the Users tab
Discovery
Who and what are we solving for? I started by identifying whose problem we are trying to solve, what those problems are, and what our solution should accomplish.
Stakeholders in order of priority:
Diners should feel encouraged and comfortable sharing constructive suggestions and positive comments. Without diners we have no feedback, without feedback we can't fulfill basic design requirements.
Wait staff should gain access to actionable feedback for improvement, and be able to share a trusted metric (comments, rating, or other) with potential employers as an indicator of their skills and success.
Restaurant management should be able to trust the metric servers share with them for consideration when hiring. Without the trust of management, wait staff will not be able to use this as a tool to help secure employment. Note: new employment may or may not be in the restaurant industry.
Together we can accomplish our mission of bridging the communication gap between diners and their servers to help servers improve their performance, and grow professionally.
Features and Behavior Assumptions
Servers should be able to use diner feedback.
Do servers leave / read reviews? If so, where?
Do servers want constructive feedback?
Do servers have trouble securing employment?
Do servers respond to feedback differently if management is involved?
Do servers believe individual performance is separate from a restaurant review?
Do servers feel feedback could impact their mood or performance?
Do servers currently receive feedback in anyway?
Do servers plan to waitress long-term? If not, are they less concerned with improvement?
Do servers feel comfortable sharing comments / rating with potential employer?
What types of future employment are servers looking to secure?
Diners should be able to provide feedback to their server.
Do diners make reservations? If so, where?
Do diners leave / read reviews? If so, where?
Do diners remember their server's name?
Do diners feel comfortable having the same server after leaving constructive feedback? Do diners need to view history?
Do diners want to help servers improve?
Do diners benefit from prompts or reminders?
Do diners believe restaurant reviews to be separate from server feedback?
Do diners care if servers know the source of feedback?
How will diners benefit from providing this feedback?
Do diners care if feedback were to bypass the restaurant?
Do diners need to be able to post multiple times to review experiences rather than establishments?
Servers should be able to use diner feedback.
Do servers leave / read reviews? If so, where?
Do servers want constructive feedback?
Do servers have trouble securing employment?
Do servers respond to feedback differently if management is involved?
Do servers believe individual performance is separate from a restaurant review?
Do servers feel feedback could impact their mood or performance?
Do servers currently receive feedback in anyway?
Do servers plan to waitress long-term? If not, are they less concerned with improvement?
Do servers feel comfortable sharing comments / rating with potential employer?
What types of future employment are servers looking to secure?
Landscape: how are others doing it?
Exploration of Yelp
CROWD-SOURCED REVIEWS ABOUT LOCAL BUSINESSES:
Does not allow users to post anonymous reviews
Allows one-time review with edit feature
Review requires comments and star rating
No easy way to filter through server specific feedback
Encountered a decent amount of buzz regarding the legitimacy of reviews on Yelp, many complained their negative reviews were removed, this is a minor factor relative to trust to be mindful of
Helpful for finding restaurants by location
Yelp review highlights allow consumers to quickly discover core elements, attractions, menu items, or other popular offerings that a business may be known for. For restaurants this focuses on menu items rather than people. Whereas salon services often have individuals tagged.
For Review Highlights to appear on a business page, there needs to be a high volume of reviews from which to pull these trends, and the business has to be in a category that's eligible for the feature. - Yelp Support Center
Exploration of Yelp+Nowait
WAITLIST AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TOOLS
The integration of Nowait is a bonus, it can create a unified process.
It can link wait staff (assignment via table number) to diners (via phone numbers) making it a strong foundation for the challenge at hand.
We could expand on this to create a single tool that takes reservations, tracks table rotation, and then prompts the diner for feedback once table has left.
A full-service client management tool could provide the most natural experience as it funnels both diner and server information into a single pipeline.
Diners won't need to remember their server's name.Server surveys can be separate from one time restaurant review on Yelp, and could be retrieved by wait staff and management in Nowait Host app dashboard which is for restaurant admins.
To note: this requires restaurants to be using this technology, and arguably on a wait. This means the tool that is used to achieve our mission is in the hands of our lowest priority stakeholder.
Diners are more likely to leave a review in the case of extreme scenario, really excellent service or really poor service.
Trust is a huge factor when it comes to reviews. By leveraging an existing service that is already trusted by the community and has volumes of users we are more likely to gain the trust of potential employers.
Public reviews linked to an individual's verified account is an effective way of promoting ethical behavior. This does not prevent user's from posting critical reviews.
Attempts to solve this problem have been made. For example, Grate was an application that tried to achieve similar goals around improving customer service but seems to have failed.
Reviews are a one-time overview, server specific feedback is re-occurring. The solution will need to consider how these coincide and should aim to behave more like a survey.
Servers often feel reluctant about reviews as they feel the source of the review is not educated on trials of the industry.
Constraints
I can guess what our users need, or I can ask them. I set up a survey from the perspective of each user to understand their current behavior & potential goals.
DO DINERS WANT THIS AND WHY? HIGHLIGHTS FROM SURVEYING 40 DINERS INCLUDE:
80% of diners feel comfortable having their server specific comments visible to only restaurant management and wait staff
77.5% of diners would be comfortable if their comments were shared with potential employers
70% of diners believe they are more likely to leave a review if reminded
55% of diners prefer comments over a pre-defined scale when leaving server specific feedback
12.5% of diners disagree that server specific feedback could help a server improve their performance
80% of diners said they are more likely to provide feedback knowing it could help the server grow professionally and improve
30% of diners feel it is fair to evaluate a server based on a single experience
45% of diners said they never leave reviews
75% of diners feel individual server reviews should be separate from restaurant reviews
70% of diners prefer to leave server specific feedback after they leave the restaurant
15% of diners feel confident recalling their server's name after leaving the restaurant
32.5% of diners feel confident recalling their server's name after leaving the restaurant if provided with a list of names
65% of diners feel confident recalling their server's name after leaving the restaurant if provided with a list of names and pictures
62.5% of diners feel comfortable having their server specific comments visible to the public
72.5% of diners would not feel comfortable returning to the same server after providing feedback
