How would you solve OpenTable's worst customer experience?

To start, will clarify that opentable is a platform for table reservation, they work with a large number of restaurants and one of the market leaders in this space. Users can either leverage their services via other platforms like yelp or restaurant websites directly, or can go on the opentable site and find/book from there.

Next, let's identify what represents the worst customer experience. Since it's a marketplace that connects eaters with restaurants, there's different "customers", but I'll assume we mean the end consumer. I'll use impact/reach to make sure the pain is both acute and impacts many people. Let's list various pain points and then prioritize:

1. I've chosen a restaurant, but when try to book a table it's unavailable for that time.
2. I booked a table, but when I arrive to the restaurant, it's not available.
3. I've booked a table for party of X, but upon arrival only a smaller table is available.

1. Background: OpenTable is the app used to make a reservation at restaurants. 
2. Clarifying Questions:
   • We will ignore the pickup/delivery side of their business for now
   • Device: We will focus on the mobile app
3. What could be the "worst customer experience"? Let's walk through the user journey. The two main groups of users are consumers and restaurants. 
   • Scenario 1: Consumer wants to go to a restaurant. Consumer opens the OpenTable app and makes a reservation. When she goes to the restaurant, there is no reservation in her name. "Technical glitch" and now consumer is disappointed, may have let down her friends, is hungry and needs to find a new place to eat. 
   • Scenario 2: Restaurant received a large reservation for a party of 25. Restaurant hires additional wait staff, but the party is no-show. Restaurant manager is upset, has to face losses in revenue. 
4. I will prioritize scenario 1 as it is more impactful to a larger number of users, the consumers.
5. Solutions: Now, let's brainstorm solutions and prioritize them
   • Let's make it right: Consumer clicks on a "Help!" button whenver they run into any issue regarding their reservation. Our algorithm will then match them to the closest restaurant with similar price/ambience/cuisine and help make a reservation for them. This way, the consumer can go to restaurant B which is as similar to restaurant A as possible. 
   • High-priority/Premium reservations: OpenTable could build a "premium" or VIP tier through their relationships with restaurantsm particularly with national chains. While this could be a last-minute paid service on OpenTable, this could be a backup to make a last minute reservation in case of emergencies like the bad experience that is being discussed.
   • Give a credit: Consumer gets a $X credit towards their next meal. 
6. I would prioritize a solution based on scalability, engineering effort and impact. I will go with the first option "let's make it right".
7. Metrics: 
   • Northstar Metric : Customer Satisfaction/NPS : The On a scale of 1-5, how likely are consumers to recommmend Opentable. 
   • Churn rate: No, % of users who don't come back to OpenTable after a bad experience.

First, let me explain my understanin of open table as a product. Open table is used to make reservations at restaraunts. Customers can select time and date to make their reservations. It is integrated with google maps, that you can make a reservation while staying within the app.

Goal: 

Candidate: Is the goal here to save customer time by cutting down the wait time at the restuarants and offer this opentable reservation system to the business for a service-fee.

Interviewer: Yes

User journey

Before I dive into the customer pain point, let me map out user journey of the customers that use the open table. 

Customer can choose a restuarant of their choice, then select the number of people, date, and time of the reservation. Then customer can add secial requests if any and make the reservation.

Customer pain points and associated solution

I would like to high-light the pain points associated with the customer journey.

A) Customers cannot differentiatie between the kids, adults, people that are pyshically chanllenged that require while chair, while making the reservation. Because kids and people that are physically challenged have special requirements.

Solution:

Create a feature that customer tell how many kids and people with special needs need a table reservation.

B) Customers cannot a serve a item on the menu. Therefore, in may cases customers had to wait for a long at the restaurants waiting for the food.

Solution:

Build a new feature to let the customers order from the menu and make a payment. It will save lot of time for the customers.

C) Customer had to swtich between multiple apps to arrange for the logistics to get to the restaurant.

Solution:

Since open table is integrated with google that has customer's location and restaurant location and reservation time and real time traffic. Suggest the customers the booking with the ride-sharing service partners such as uber and lyft. 

Let the customers confirm the round trip booking the ride-sharing serivce or decline the service if they have different personal logistics arrangement.

D) Customers do not notified about their reservations based on the traffic, whether conditions. 

Solution:

Design a intelligent notification system where the customers will be informed about the live traffic  and when the customers have to leave their current location, customer should also be notified if it is cold or rainy or snowy that customers carry required outfits and accessories.

E) Customers had to contact  their friends and families on their contacts to collect their food preference and then place the order. It is very time consuming.

Solution:

Desgin a group ordering system where customer generate the reservation link and simply it with the friends and families members in their contact lists. So that they can order the items directly according to their own preferences.