3. Glassdoor: Helps find a job
and company of choice
Mouthshut: Product review
which includes cars,
electronic , credit Cards,
Schools and websites
TripAdvisor:Travel website
providing reviews of travel-
related content
GadgetReview: Reviews on cell
phones, computer accessories,
DVD and digital cameras,
handhelds, home theater and
portable audio
WineSpectator: Wine ratings,
with full reviews, including
tasting notes, score and
recommendations on when to
drink.
Yelp: Publish crowd-sourced
reviews about local businesses
A review site is a website on which reviews can be posted about people,
businesses, products, or services. These sites may use Web 2.0 techniques
to gather reviews from site users or may employ professional writers to
author reviews on the topic of concern for the site.
The focus in this PPT is on a review site by the name of ZOMATO.
5. HISTORY OF ZOMATO
• Online restaurant search and discovery service
• Website founded in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal
• Formerly known as foodiebay.com until 2010. Renamed to Zomato as the earlier
name contained ebay in it
2011
Coverage extended to
Chennai, Hyderabad and
Ahmedabad
Launched mobile app
2012
Launched Citibank
Zomato Restaurant Guide
which resulted in 2.5
million customers visiting
website
Launched a site dedicated
to food porn
Entered first overseas
location: Dubai
2013
Expanded to New
Zealand, Turkey, Brazil
and Indonesia
Website and Apps were
available in multiple
languages
2014
Acquired New Zealand’s
‘Menu-Mania’
More acquisitions in
Europe
Direct competition with
Yelp, Open Table and
Zagat
Presence in 145 cities
across 20 countries
6. CHALLENGES
• Spam Control – People trying to
erode the image of restaurants by
posting fake reviews
• Expanding into tier2/tier3 cities –
Currently they have the database of
only tier1 cities
• Building a dish database – They are
in the process of building dish
database i.e users can search by
dish
7. COMPETITORS
DOMESTIC COMPETITION
• Burrp – part of media conglomerate Network 18 group
• Indirect competition with Justeat.in and Toptable
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
• Hungrygowhere in Singapore – does not want to operate because of stiff competition
• Yadig and timeout in UAE – but claim to have 65% market share
• Yelp in US – biggest company in this segment and operates in 31 countries
COMPETITIVE EDGE OF ZOMATO OVER ITS COMPETITORS
• It has stuck to its core function
• Technological advancements – user friendly mobile app
• Rich content on restaurants and great product with an easy to navigate user interface
8. COMPARISON WITH AN
INTERNATIONAL BRAND
• Yelp, headquartered in San Francisco, is a mobile phone App which publishes
crowd-sourced reviews about local businesses
• By 2010 , Yelp achieved revenues worth $30 million, and by 2014, Yelp recorded
a 135 million visitors per month, publishing 70 million crowd-sourced reviews
• Both Yelp and Zomato are go-to destinations for online restaurant reviews,
locations and cuisine preferences.
• The Indian start-up believes it has an edge over the American company because
of its “curated content”—a complete library of menus, lists of restaurants and
photos of food and restaurant interiors and exteriors that is carefully collected
and posted by Zomato employees.
• Zomato launched a war against Yelp with the acquisition of US-based restaurant
search guide Urbanspoon
9. HOW BRANDS USE ZOMATO
• Zomato has two sections – restaurant guide & blog
• The blog section features a blog maintained by the Zomato
team, based on customer’s experiences
• Restaurant guide helps in searching restaurants, dine out etc. and
provides information on home delivery, cafés and nightlife .etc.
• Brands are using Zomato platform to take feedback and MOT from
the customers end
• Brands are using the Zomato platform to increase visibility
• Zomato is serving as an interface between customers and the
restaurants
10. BEST PRACTICES AT ZOMATO
• Data collection team are given extensive training on Zomato so that when
they go for data collection and are asked questions about Zomato they can
answer them which leads to fewer data collection errors
• Zomato segregates reviews in two columns ( Top and Other). This gives
users an option to read reviews by seasoned connoisseur of food
• Zomato team visits each restaurant in person to scan the menu. Team
doesn’t depend on websites for geographical co-ordinates but do them
manually for correct co-ordinates
• Zomato team manually reads reviews and deletes spam reviews if needed in
addition to automated filters and behavior pattern matching.
11. SUMMARIZING BEST PRACTICES
PUT CUSTOMERS
FIRST
• Product team
overpowers
• Focus in
website on
products than
on
advertisements
GET PERSONAL
WITH FEEDBACK
• Real Person
write back
• Not sticking to
the automated
mail culture
CUSTOMER
SERVICE AS CORE
STRENGTH
• Best people
manning the
queries
• Understanding
the business
intelligence
behind
customer
service
BE EMOTIONAL
• Customers will
only care for
product if you do
• Changed product
tagline from
“India’s #1 online
restaurant guide”
to “Discover more
places to eat
around you”.
12. HOW NOT TO USE ZOMATO
• Number of characters in the review should not be less than 140. Also, Junk
reviews gets removed altogether.
• Don’t put irrelevant or promotional content or any data about spam
restaurants.
• Don’t use foul/abusive/hateful language, threats or derogatory comments
on race gender or religion.
• Don’t add review without even visiting the restaurant. For example : ”Never
been here, never want to.”
• Don’t review a bunch of fast food outlets in quick succession. Reviews will
be moderated in the anticipation of this being a suspicious activity.
• Don’t plagiarise. Create your own content.
• Refrain from using inappropriate names, bios or profile images.
• Don’t overlook the terms and conditions of Zomato as well as local laws and
regulations.
• In case of any dispute with any restaurant, contact the appropriate authority
directly as Zomato doesn’t claim to be a court of law or a ministry of health.