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What Restaurants Know About You Before You Walk In

vogue.com

21–30 of 60 posts

Re: What Restaurants Know About You Before You Walk In

#21
post #7

Right now, it's high-end restaurants in New York City doing this. But they did that by hand in the past. The "headwaiter who knows everybody" was a big deal once. The big change will come when this filters down to chain restaurants. Which way will Starbucks go on this? They already have an affinity card and know your WiFi information. "You haven't visited a Starbucks in 72 hours. Are you OK?"

Starbucks has been pushing gameified star bonuses and events from my understanding. It effectively does "Hey would you like some stars" on everyones phone. Also they give bonuses and stars for food you don't eat to encourage you to try the other food.

It works quite well (at least on me). Responses usually go from "well, I was already feeling like one of those so might as well get some points" to "why would I want a Frappachino when it's so cold out"? I assume their algorithms are under heavy development and are basically random A/B tests at this point, perhaps primed with some basic data and stars added as an enticement.

In the future, I could see it evolving into something where it sees what the weather is, looks at what websites I'm visiting (via data brokers), analyzes historical trends, extrapolates my likely mood and finally uses all of this to figure out what sugary comfort drink I'm mostly likely to bite at. Perhaps I should take comfort in how utterly predictable I am and how easily open to suggestion...

On a similar note, if you haven't seen it; https://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_re_building_a_dy...

Re: What Restaurants Know About You Before You Walk In

#22
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why is this illegal?

I don't think it is. I might have missed it but I don't think anyone in the thread or tweet suggested it was.

oh,I read "busted" as something legal.

> Slang Placed under arrest. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/busted

maybe that deosn't apply in this context.

Re: What Restaurants Know About You Before You Walk In

#23
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why is this illegal?

It might not be, although privacy laws in the EU tend to be stricter than those in the US. "Busted" could simply refer to this practice being outed to customers who might not like it.

Minor correction: Norway is in the EEA, not in the EU.

Re: What Restaurants Know About You Before You Walk In

#24
post #2

Not exactly in-depth reporting here, but I wouldn't expect much more of Vogue. In all honesty, I'm not surprised that restaurants you have to make reservations with want to know everything about you before you walk in - our world's economy is all based on personal information; the "customer" is the most valuable product. Heck, if I'm to be perfectly honest, I would not be surprised if there was a restaurant out there…

To be fair, some people may like their experiences to be personalised.

Re: What Restaurants Know About You Before You Walk In

#25
post #6

Best way to track customers is to provide free wifi. Log the visits by mac addresses, and you can collect huge amounts of valuable data.

Euclid and other companies are setup to provide this as a service to retailers, though device fingerprinting became harder when iOS starting randomizing MAC addresses

Re: What Restaurants Know About You Before You Walk In

#26
> "We know more about our guests than we ever have before—you cannot have enough information. Now we have no excuse not to customize the experience [...]"

Maybe some customers do not want a custom experience? There might be advantages, but I guess that some customers pick places because of "the atmosphere, the general food and the waiters there" - so a too targeted experience could also be harmful.

Re: What Restaurants Know About You Before You Walk In

#28
post #24
post #2

Not exactly in-depth reporting here, but I wouldn't expect much more of Vogue. In all honesty, I'm not surprised that restaurants you have to make reservations with want to know everything about you before you walk in - our world's economy is all based on personal information; the "customer" is the most valuable product. Heck, if I'm to be perfectly honest, I would not be surprised if there was a restaurant out there…

To be fair, some people may like their experiences to be personalised.

That might be true. Their preference for a personalized experience should not allow the establishment to impact on my privacy. It should be strongly opt-in, not "avoid and never patronize this restaurant to opt-out".

Re: What Restaurants Know About You Before You Walk In

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is. I might have missed it but I don't think anyone in the thread or tweet suggested it was.

oh,I read "busted" as something legal. > Slang Placed under arrest. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/busted maybe that deosn't apply in this context.

I believe it's also used in a more colloquial sense to mean someone was caught doing something they shouldn't, even non-illegaly

Re: What Restaurants Know About You Before You Walk In

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is. I might have missed it but I don't think anyone in the thread or tweet suggested it was.

oh,I read "busted" as something legal. > Slang Placed under arrest. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/busted maybe that deosn't apply in this context.

Yeah, by 'busted' I meant 'got exposed' / 'got caught with their pants down' by the public. Nothing to do with legality of stated act.
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