For years, Yelp users have been logging onto their profiles after a night of dining, detailing their restaurant experiences and issuing stars as a measure of performance for restaurants. When these hastily written reviews are good ones, everyone seems happy, restaurants included. But when they're negative, unfair or inaccurate, the reviews, and Yelp on the whole, quickly earn the disdain of restaurant owners and chefs.
It was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to turn the tables. According to Bloomberg, the Sydney-based restaurant reservation system Dimmi ResDiary, Australia's version of OpenTable , now allows restaurants to track and rate customers' dining "performance." Restaurants can detail what customers ordered, whether or not they were a pain in the ass, and even the amount of their tip. The hope is that the new capability will help restaurants tailor their service for repeat customers. But it may also curtail diners with excessively demanding behavior.
Other restaurants are able to see this information, just like diners can see other dining reviews on Yelp, but customers don't have access, leaving them in the dark. Seating preferences and food allergies could prove to be helpful information, but restaurants can add anything, like what you do for a living, what you look like and whether or not you chew with your mouth open.
Currently there's no equivalent capability available in the United States, but we all know how this goes. It's only a matter of time before an engineer or entrepreneur sees an opportunity in giving restaurants the ability to shore themselves up against over-demanding diners. And who knows: Maybe they'll even give you a star rating, and use it to determine where to seat you and how to treat you. Want to keep that rating up? Better behave.
Sounds pretty nice, actually.
