Take-Out 2.0
It seems that even if a business absolutely relies on tertiary services, it can still take advantage of social media in the rendering of those services. The Canadian rotisserie chicken franchise, Swiss Chalet, has implemented a kind of Web 2.0 take-out ordering system. As Daryl Brewer at Three Minds explains their new Group Ordering System:
You start off with a "master orderer". He puts in everyone’s e-mail address who are going to participate in the order (it saves this list so you don’t have to re-enter the e-mails every time you order), and the site sends e-mails to each of them, with a link they can click on to put in their order. Very cool, but that’s not the best part. The BEST part is that the master orderer sits back and watches, in real time, as the status of the order changes. The page refreshes every 30 seconds or so, and it lets the master orderer know which members are online and doing their orders, and once their order is submitted, it lets them know that they’re done, and the total of their order. The master orderer can even set a submission deadline, and send a reminder e-mail in case somebody hasn’t yet ordered!
Once everybody has ordered, the master orderer sends off the entire order off to Swiss Chalet with a couple of quick clicks.
Indeed, as far as the food service industry goes, this is the most forward thinking use of the internet that I've heard of to date.





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