Originally Posted by
chgoeditor
Honestly, I think there's room for OpenTable improvement in this arena...I book the majority of my reservations through OT, so they clearly know that I have a 0% no-show rate. Wouldn't it save time if they simply communicated that to the restaurants where I make reservations? Or how about allowing me access to tables at more in-demand restaurants because I'm almost guaranteed to show up?
+1 I like that OpenTable has functionality for the restaurants to indicate if someone was a no-show, and then ban customers for repeated infractions. Of course a determined customer could work around this, but at least it would send a message.
My company owns several upscale restaurants in the Middle East, and no-shows are especially endemic here. We have even had huge no-show rates for invitation-only, complimentary "VIP" events for which the customer RSVP'd. Talk about discourteous.