OpenTable Erfahrungen

I have been using open table on both sides. I use it to make my personal restaurant reservations and I use it at the restaurant I work for as a server.
I love that when I view restaurants and want to make a reservation about 70% of total restaurants have open table. Its quick and painless way to make a reservation without being put on hold by a hostess..sometimes for very very long time. It give you chose of time and you can read all about the place you looking at. It shows you :hours, Entertainment, menu, you see photos that costumers posted, you see map of location, even who the chef is. Making reservation takes less then 10 seconds!!!! Fast and confident. As a worker it's very easy to operate system. Brainless I would say. I like that I can make notes for each reservation. Such a sever request or allergy.

For my personal use I never had an issue. As me working with open table every here and then reservations are not showing on my side as hostess/server. I had few angry guest. Will never know if that was a costumer fult or open table system fult for not processing reservation.

OT is a reasonably priced reservation system that is reliable and straightforward to use. It offers more extensive services for a large operation, but in its minimal form is easy for a small (35-45 seat) restaurant to use without dedicating a person to managing it.

The mobile app could be great, but isn't. There are three ways to interact: PC Web, Mobile Web, and Mobile App (Android in my case). They all have slightly different functionality, for no good reason.
- Example 1: The mobile app lets you see previous times a patron came in; mobile Web and PC Web only tell you the number, not the dates. But the mobile app doesn't give you control over scheduling and such. So you find yourself flipping among multiple devices to get your job done.
- Example 2: Mobile Web and mobile app require constant re-login. PC does not.
- Example 3: PC works reliably to see reservations, but after a period of inactivity, stops allowing interaction (such as setting a guest to "Seated"). A browser refresh is required.
Exasperating!

I love that I do not have to call the restaurant itself to book reservation, and that I can just log in to Open Table to look for availability

You do get dinged if you fail to show up several times for your reservations, your account may get locked

It allows you to assign tables in the restaurant as they come in and shoes a fairly good job of tracking several metrics like turn time, server cover counts, etc. It also has ways to advertise and draw in customers who may not know about you.

It's impossible to compete. With the difficulty in finding a restaurant as a customer it translates to moe exposure for larger chain restaurants with budgets to throw at open table. Also, it's pricey. The cost per guest that books is unreasonable and you still have to pay more to advertise. It's just not worth it in my opinion. That are cheaper methods available that focus on phone number advertising as opposed to email (because who opens email nowadays). There are text message options with open table but they are buried and not effective.

The best thing about making reservations on OpenTable is the vast array of dining locations available to you. We are able to easily find niche restaurants that offer the often-scarce African-ish menus we love to explore on trips and compare to what we are used to back home. Profiles of locations are also detailed enough to assist me in my elimination process so then I am very confident of my decision on where to eat when I eventually make it.

What I dislike about using OpenTable as a diner is the same thing that makes it good. The huge number of choices available can make deciding on where to book a bit of a headache

From a sales perspective, Open Table is fantastic at making sure we have plotted the proper rooms for private events. It is constantly making suggestions and making sure we're in the right time slots for turning tables. For our FOH manangers, it is very easy to train on which makes it less time consuming in the host training process. Guest center is also a great hub to check reviews, see your seating from an app on your phone and make any changes on the go. Love the pop up function and notes section to make sure our hosts have all the information they need. OTrestaurant.com is also wonderful to make sure we have all the right marketing tools turned on and become available to our guests. It is important that our guests have an ease of use to make a reservation and with the bonus points they receive from booking on open table it is just a plus for us to use the software.

Not a con, but we would love to see Open Table integrate with private dining software to make plotting private events faster.

OpenTable has been the industry's leading platform for managing guests and an active shift. OpenTable is compatible with the majority of restaurant point of sale systems which really enhance the amount/ variety of guest information. It makes tracking new and regular guests extremely simple. OpenTable is always improving and expanding its capabilities.

The countless features of OpenTable don't come cheap. It is definitely an investment and often underutilized.

User friendly and easy to navigate. Also a very established business for online reservations, which mean that most of our staff has worked with it in the past and is familiar with the layout and set-up of it. Very good customer support and is very knowledgeable about the software and can easily talk you through whatever process you are looking at completing.

Little clunky and cluttered to navigate around it via the app. Also a lot of steps to add guest into the system for simple just seating a walk-in.

There is so many benifits- ease of use, platform for managing reservations prior to and in the moment, it aids in generating reservations, retaining guests and collecting data. Now that there is a venga connection I’m over the moon!

Honestly the cost per reservation is a little high for small owner operated restaurants but the added benefits are unmatched.

Finally upgraded a lot of options for the software. It's been years and years making suggestions with this company, glad they started to finally implement what industry people needed.

The cost associated with some of the repeat business seems like it's unnecessary, but as long as it's driving business towards me I'm OK with it.

Where to start when it comes to the best features of the OpenTable software. First and foremost, it is incredibly simple to pick up how to use it after only a few reservations have been made, it’s that great of a system. As a front of the house team member, it allowed me to view the entire floor plan of the restaurant on screen in a visual way that made the most sense to me, which made making reservations that much easier. When it came time to create the reservation, it was a matter of clicking on the proper icon from either a view of the floor plan or a view of the timeline. You are shown an overall view of the guests names and their party size as well as given an estimated time their party will likely be sat given their past visits to the restaurant and based of the average time of a party that size.

The software version I used has since been updated several times and I’m sure anything that was missing then has been added by now. As a user for multiple years, I strongly believe that there was hardly anything I can think of that was wrong with OpenTable. It helped me complete my job efficiently and all the guests seemed to enjoy their process of using it as well.

Easy for our guests to make reservations, tracks guests visits, you can enter guest notes and historical data to make their next visit more meaningful. They often have "Top Ten" lists for the categories that guests vote you in that you can use for marketing purposes. Reviews on Open Table are considered 'legit' as only real diners can write reviews.

If you have more money to spend, a program like SevenRooms has more guest tracking data capabilities for tagging and targeted emails/marketing. Can get expensive if your guests often use Open Table to make reservations.

Most everything you can do with this software is very intuitive. Very easy to learn how to do multiple things very quickly and very easy to teach my other employees to do the same. I love how I can run my dining room on a busy weekend night from my tablet and be in complete control of all reservations, walk ins, and call aheads.

Very few issues with this software. If i had to come up with one for the review, i would say that it can be slightly buggy every once in awhile. What i mean is, some settings that i have changed to block tables for reservations or reconfigure the dining room setup can revert to previous settings without my doing. Once in a blue moon, but it is very frustrating when it happens.

What I like most about this software is its usefulness, coupled with its simplistic yet easy layout. The options for available times and selections are very easy to read, making it very user-friendly. I also liked the way the layout also seemed to cater to touchscreen devices with larger than average digital buttons for selections. This definitely contributes to use on the go when a reservation may be needed to be made last minute. The available time suggestions closest to my desired time and date option also save me time from having to search around and find an available date and time.

There is not much I dislike about this software, but one thing that I would appreciate is in regards to desired date storage. What I mean by this is, let us say I have a date and time in mind for a reservation, and that time slot is not available, I am unable to book that timeslot. However, I am never made aware if that time slot becomes available unless I keep checking on that timeslot. It would be ideal if this software could incorporate an email alert or equivalent if a previously unavailable timeslot becomes available (due to the party originally occupying the reservation say cancels their existing reservation or if more seating becomes available) such that I can book my desired timeslot. While I realize this is more a feature I would like to see in a future update as opposed to an issue with the present software, I feel that this is something that is lacking that could be easily incorporated as a very useful user option.

What I like the most about OpenTable is its ease of use. If I know what restaurant I want to book a reservation for and they have availability, I can basically get in and get out in less than 2 minutes. THAT'S efficiency.

I also like that you can customize searches by specific neighborhoods, specific occasions or ambiances (romantic vs. casual, etc.) and obviously prices.

Yelp isn't a main competitor but I hate that when you search for a bar or restaurant in a certain neighborhood on Yelp the results populate many, many bars or restaurants beyond that neighborhood to satisfy the search generation. I like that OpenTable functions more explicitly and narrowly than Yelp but it MAY include some very close neighborhoods in a search query.

OpenTable's trend forecasting and "places we think you'd like" are on point, too. They do a good job of assimilating restaurants into categories not just by food type but ambiance type and cost. On OpenTable, very often I'll book a reservation and then come back to check something and see that there are recommended restaurants for me that I actually already have on my personal list. It's not just like, "You picked an Italian restaurant, so we're going to recommend another Italian restaurant!". It feels more personalized and catered to me because many other factors are seemingly taken into account besides just food type.

This isn't a dig at the software specifically but I feel like some high end or modern / niche restaurants decide to host reservations on Resy instead and that tends to deter me from using OpenTable from time to time. I haven't had any issue with the OpenTable software specifically.

The ease of access of this app is too good for words. If everyone is sufficiently trained, and staff members are on their A game, this is app is quite helpful and useful. It allows all members of staff to update the POS system in order to communicate quickly what status a table is at. It is also helpful with assigning tables to certain parties and deciding upon wait times. For the Hostess, this system is great all all hosts should learn this program at some point in their career. I would only say that it is harder to expect a server to stay on top of updating the system for the hosts throughout their steps of service.

While the overall application is easy to use and very informative, it does tend to send some mixed signals between servers and hosts if not used properly. The app shows table layout on the screen that allows the user to see which tables have guests, which tables are empty but need to be bussed, and which tables are ready for new guests to be seated. The problem here is that unless a server has time between taking care of her other guests to run to a POS station to inform a hostess that a table is dirty and then find time 5-10 minutes later to see if her buster has cleaned the table and then update the table through the system, clean tables are forgotten and wait times are lengthened due to miscommunications. The structure itself is easy to use, however it seems to add

It is very user friendly for guests and admins. It is easy to navigate and flows very well. Makes the experience better for everyone.

It works very well and there are not any current functions that we are looking for that is not provided.

I use OpenTable almost on a daily basis to make reservations for both business and personal lunches or dinners. It is very easy to use and you can book a table at a restaurant within minutes. I like that you can search restaurants by neighborhood but also by cuisine and price range. It is also very easy to cancel or modify a reservation. The app is also very convenient for any on the go need.

Their reward program is not appealing. The VIP status doesn't grant you anything. I wish they would design a program where VIP members get preferred seating, timing etc. Moreover, after you collect a certain amount of points, you get a voucher towards a future reservation; however I noticed that the selection of restaurants that accept the voucher is extremely limited. Additionally, not all restaurants are listed on OpenTable, which sometimes is not ideal

My in-laws own a restaurant and I often help them from a technology and operations perspective. They had trouble managing their reservations. They only open for dinner, and they would spend a lot of time every day listening to Voicemail reservations, trying to get parties back on the phone to confirm, and trying to manage cancellations vs. openings with an antiquated system. When I suggested OpenTable I did not realize all of the problems I would be solving for them. OpenTable brings reservation systems into the 21st century, and allows patrons an easy way to make, change, and cancel restaurant reservations with the click of a button. For the restaurant owner or manager, it saves all of the time you use to need for follow-up, and all of the administrative management needed to handle cancellations and book optimal service volume.

There is nothing that I do not like about OpenTable for business. It has brought a lot of value to our team, and has become a major asset that we rely on to book reservations. Patrons are as happy with OpenTable as we have been in the decision to start taking reservations through them.

This is an unbelievably convenient and functional product. I use it to find restaurants easily and reliably when I travel. It's much more convenient than having to call the restaurant. I can make reservations any time of the day and go back-and-forth between restaurants to compare available times. Then, after I finish making my reservation, I could send the information to the other people in my party with just one click. Because of this product, I have tried many new restaurants and in many different areas that I wouldn't have otherwise tried. And, of course, the point system gets me a coupon every so often.

My biggest complaint is with the interface. I use it as an app on my phone mostly and sometimes I have trouble finding what I'm looking for. It works much better on the desktop.

As a website agency, OpenTable has been great to embed on our clients' websites to allow customers to make online reservations.

There aren't a ton of options in terms of styling the different widgets and browser testing for online reservations.

Easy to use
Clear indication of bookings
Easy to make notes for specific bookings
Excellent in time management

Reduced cost from online bookings
More options to indicate where tables are at
Better automatic table allocation

(struggled to find many cons to be honest)

Easy to Use
Painless Monthly Billing
Inexpensive, Low Cost
Helpful Dashboard

Easy to miss notifications, tends to get lost in my emails etc.
Not sure how charges work for cancelled reservations, but I regularly have out of area numbers make reservations then cancel within minutes. Hopefully not padding their numbers.
Guests have complained about not receiving confirmation of their reservations from OpenTable
I wish there was some sort of reason response with the cancellations - even if its pre-formed answers selected from a box, something that doenst require a lot of effort on customers ends

Exposure. But also many features to keep track of your bookings, who changed the bookings when, and history of return guests. Great customer service- you get right thru every time. Highly recommend.

I wish it would have the ability to get it on more computers without the extra cost. As a sales manager, if I could get it at home, I could work from home.

Ability to text those on the waitlist at the click of a button, how customizable table setup can be to make it look exactly like our multi-floor restaurant layout, ease of customizing server profiles/keeping track of who's next in rotation automatically. Keeps record of heads per each table sat so keeps servers satisfied they aren't being jipped

Only allows 3 texts per guest-- not ideal for busy brunch spots. Does not send alerts to us when cancellations are made so often having to constantly check and re-check to make sure we aren't saving tables for nothing