Here let me read it to you. Best to listen straight off Spotify though, the browser version is buggy.

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Tech comes to spoil a nice night out

How often do you use a product or service and think: are you deliberately trying to drive me away? You think: I just want to spend money, but you’re blocking me with waves of stupid obstacles.

It’s often driven by mindless application of tech on the grounds that more tech is always better. Like how the mostly-unnecessary visuals of one-on-one Zoom took over from phone calls.

If you want a table at either of my two usual pub restaurants, you must use Resy, the Beelzebub of booking systems. It’s always been horrendous, but now they’ve added two-factor authentication. As if that’s a perfectly normal thing to ask of people who just want dinner.

It’s set to the USA +1 phone prefix to ensure most people are confused. They text you a 6-digit PIN, giving you access to a login page where you must remember which of your email addresses you used last time. I tried them all, none worked.

But hey there’s a handy “log in with a one-time use code” feature. Which would be your second 6-digit PIN experience for one booking. Except that you click it and it literally does … nothing.

I spent ten minutes trying to hack the system, and completely failed. I’m reasonably tech-literate. Imagine how your nan would go with it.

Resy is an impregnable firewall built to defend restaurants against the risk of having customers. Because you can’t have them sneaking in and paying for food and drinks.

I’m guessing it was created by coder-types who live off Uber Eats and have never eaten out in their lives. Like this bro, who has a million followers and does not know that that restaurant bookings exist.

Uncompromising stuff from Tim who definitely has a girlfriend who is not imaginary.

*** 2024 update ***

I had not heard of Tim Pool when I wrote this. Or until a few weeks ago when US Justice Department prosecutors accused him, and other right-wing podcasters, of being unwitting stooges in a Russian government paid propaganda operation. Two US-based Russians have been charged with making $10 million in payments to influencers in a scheme to use those stars to spread Kremlin-friendly messages.

Pool was receiving US100,000 per video, which he presumably believed was the legit market value of his own awesomeness.

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***Another 2024 update ***

Because online restaurant bookings weren’t annoying enough in 2022, now they’ve all added a heinous “enhance your experience” screen you have to wade through. Looking at you, Seven Rooms booking app. You think you have a booking, but no.

You must deal with several screens of enhancement options, all of them stuff you would order if you were a guy who has owned several copies of The Game.

Bottles of champagne, a dozen oysters, a maze of caviar options.

But why? If you want those things, you can just order them from the menu like a normal human. Is the idea that your “enhancements” get delivered to the table with a flourish to impress your guests and people on surrounding tables? Ugh. Yet another UX experience that reeks of growth-hacker thinking.

Whatever the idea behind it, it’s now a box that must be ticked when every restaurant sets up its booking system, so we all have to wade through the caviar. It’s in every damn restaurant, not just the fancy white linen places.

Another experience downgrade from businesses that don’t use their own product.

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Don’t take the sales pitch as gospel

Good restaurateurs and pub owners have fine-tuned antennae for making people feel welcome. Resy is the first-impression anti-welcome. How has nobody in those businesses tried to use it themselves? Rather than taking the sales rep at their word.

Because when buyers have a powerful thirst to have their problem solved, they really want to believe in that magic solution. We see it a lot in our industry:

Sales rep:

“We can not only offer you the lowest price, but will actually give you a substantial pile of cash as an up-front bonus for signing a contract.”

Client:

“Wow sounds good. But will that compromise service? Because we want the best service.”

Sales rep:

“I can assure you that we also offer the best service in the industry.”

Ten minutes later the client is emailing their boss to let them know that using next-level negotiation skills, they have secured the best service at the lowest possible price. This strategy is currently being served up to voters who want to believe in the Australian election campaign.

Sure you would Clive.

Don’t delegate. Use your own product yourself

To get a real sense of how your business is delivering, you have to use the software yourself. You have to go into the stores. Call the call centre. Open an account. Get products delivered. And see what your customers have to deal with. And you have a head start in that you know your product.

If your business has more than a dozen people, I guarantee you will find at least one thing you’re putting customers through that will make you hang your head in shame.

They’re everywhere, but here’s a good place to start looking. Insane, convoluted processes you put customers through, to work around an obstacle put there by your own IT department.

Forcing logins and more passwords when the purchase just does not justify that. Your customer isn’t opening a bank account. It’s not just online either. I took a packet of underpants to the cashier desk in a major department store.

Cashier:

What is your email address?

Me:

Why?

Cashier:

I need your email address before I can process the sale.

Me:

No you don’t.

Cashier:

But I need to key it in …

Me:

Please I’m running late for another thing just sell me the underpants.

Cashier:

OK but … (regretful look on his face) you will not go into the lucky draw.

This once-great brand now reduced to a lucky draw like it’s the local bowls club. It wasn’t the cashier’s fault, they’re being forced into into it by someone upstairs.

Beware of marketing people

The bigger your company, the more of this goes on. If you’re in charge, you’re relying on what your staff tell you about what it’s like to be a customer. Don’t take their word for it.

Be particularly wary of marketing people, and I speak as one of those. Remember the old 4P’s model: product, price, place and promotion? Most marketers think of marketing as just promotion.

All their thinking and effort goes into ad and PR campaigns, because that’s the fun part. It provides the cool stories they can tell their friends at Friday night drinks. But if your product is a dog, your ads are just setting customers up for a greater disappointment when they go to buy.

A great, usable product experience is a sustainable advantage in a world of customer frustration. Trying out your own product, and your competitors’ products, will always pay off.

P.S After I finished writing this story I did some background reading on Resy and learned one of the founders was none other than relentless hustle-porn king Gary Vaynerchuk.

Mate, spend less time talking about yourself and more time making a product we can use.

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