Have you ever been in a situation when you wanted to go out with your friends to your favorite restaurant on a weekend, but had to drop your plan because you were sure that you wouldn’t get a “seat” once you reach there? Or have you ever felt lost in a restaurant, screaming or waving your hand to get the waiter’s attention but to no avail?
Well, to help you in this regard is GetSeated.in, a Bangalore-based Discovery and Connectivity platform. Founded by Neeraj(CEO), Alfred(COO) and Arcadius(CMO), GetSeated is a discovery platform for wide range of business types like restaurants, bars, fast-food centres. It also helps you plan events and view latest offers around your city.
“The Idea of connecting businesses and customers struck me when I went out on a Saturday night with few friends in Bangalore. It was one of the best places with great ambience and as expected, being a weekend, it was jam-packed. Getting a table seemed a distant proposition to me. I wasn’t able to find a waiter to order food and drink and was completely lost. I also made an unsuccessful attempt at screaming and waving my hand at the waiter to take my order. Finally, I had to walk up to the bar and place an order which took literally 30 to 40 minutes to get the order. That’s when the idea of Getseated came in my mind.” said Neeraj to Times of Startups.
According to Neeraj, Bars, Restaurants, business owners allocate a lot of funds in their launch and marketing to get new customer but they are not doing anything to retain their existing customers. With GetSeated and SeatedIn, Neeraj and his team wish to improve the service that the customers get but at the same time help businesses to retain their existing customers.
“With our technology, businesses will be able to understand their customers better. A little data mining on the customers preferences viz. the food they have ordered, their likes and dislikes and the review of their experience can help businesses serve and retain their customers in a more effective manner. Through our platform, customers would be able to review their experience after their meal, increasing the authenticity of the review and creating more transparency between customers and business owners.” he added.
Currently, they have three products in their portfolio.
GetSeated: It’s a discovery platform for customers were they would be able to discover restaurants, cafe, bars, fast food and dessert stores in Bangalore.
SeatedIn: It is a connectivity platform where customers can connect with business owners via POS. They are also working on a Bluetooth technology which would connect customers and business owners to take the order and service to the next level.
GetDelivered: There are close to 35 to 40 own kitchen delivery startups in Bangalore, it gets really difficult and confusing for customers to place the order for delivery. GetDelivered is a platform for delivery startups who have their own kitchen.Customers can browse through their delivery partners based on meal category, offers, dishes compare and place a suitable meal.
According to Neeraj, one of the biggest challenges that his team came across was the execution of the idea itself since the technology and market were very new to them.They had to do a lot of research with the feasibility of the idea and coming from Management background it was a challenge to setting up an IT team along with choosing the right platform which would be scalable with their products and users.
Challenges apart, Neeraj feels that other players in the market are not focused on building customers experience, retention or loyalty from the time customers are seated in their favorite place and that gives them an upper hand in the market.
“We have also been approached by few prospective partners and we are also reaching out to those who would be interested in the technology we are working on. We want to take it more seriously once we have our pilot launch of SeatedIn in Bangalore and Boston. Our plan is to have the product available in 20 places in Bangalore and Boston and then it would be the right time to take decisions on investments and partners.” said Neeraj.
