OpenTable — Rudi O'Meara

OpenTable

Challenge /

OpenTable was the first-mover in the market with the biggest customer base and the largest network of diners. But they weren’t sure how to convince new and existing customers to try their brand new, cloud-based product. While many OpenTable employees came from the restaurant industry, there wasn’t a deep cultural understanding of what their customers really valued. And having spent the past 18 years adding innumerable features, OpenTable had kind of lost sight of how big the idea of hospitality actually is in the industry. And that was causing them to miss a slew of great product and marketing opportunities.

Short version: tall order, up!

Solution /

As is often the case, the best first step in evolving your business (from either an operational or brand perspective) is simply taking the time to bring the customer’s voice back inside the company. And that’s just what we did for OpenTable. By holding a series of workshops and office hours (two dedicated days at headquarters a week for a quarter), producing some short-form documentary-style videos about how technology fits into the day-to-day operations of real restaurants, we were able to realign the team around what they always sensed was their true mission: helping restaurants create memorable moments for diners. For good.

And, yes. This was (by far) my most delicious engagement…

Genentech

Cisco