Don't you hate calling popular restaurants to make reservations?

How many times do you call and then get into the automated attendant deal? Then you wait 2, 4, maybe 10 minutes if the place is really hot to speak to a 'reservationist' (who came up with that one?!). Then if you are lucky enough to get a table other than 5:30 or 9:30 you have to then read off your credit card # to hold the reservation and take the risk of being charged $ 25.00 if you don't show up. Finally you have to reconfirm the day before (even if you are calling 2 days before!)

I have started to more regularly use Opentable.com which allows you (at participating restaurants of course) to make a reservation completely on-line. True, the times they offer after you put in what you want are not always exactly what you want, (it seems to me if I want 7PM they offer 7:15 and if I want 7:15 they offer 7PM) but for the most part it works and I pretty much show up close to the time I want, but when it is convenient for me and not necessarily for them. You also get 100 Open Table points each time you use it (you must verify that when you check in at the restaurant). You can then use the points once you accumulate over 1,000 for awards and things.

The point is that Opentable and other services like it allow the customer to choose the method of communication and it does away with the maddening phone call deal and waste of time. I can literally make a reservation in under 30 seconds. They send a confirming email and it's all good. My friend who is an owner of 5 restaurants (Barcelona Wine Bars in CT and he does not subscribe) says it's good for the customer but not so good for the restaurant as it costs the restaurant to be a part of the system and if the patron does not get the time he wants he may just bail out whereas if you take a phone call reservation you more often can talk the patron into coming in even if it is not their preferred time.

Opentable is a pretty good example of Customer Controlled Communications (TM). You control the experience and get premiums for doing so. I like that.