Dimmi’s comparison of itself to Uber

Dimmi recently released a blog article comparing itself to Uber was quite prescient, but not for the reasons that Dimmi stated in the article.  There are a number of similarities between Uber and Dimmi that very interesting to explore.

1. Both Dimmi and Uber are facing changing markets.  Uber is looking at completely replacing it’s drivers with Self Driving Cars and Dimmi is facing replacing it’s business model of  charging to take bookings online with chargin to offer Resdiary.  Both companies are or will see technology massively undermine their business models.  Self driving vehicles will mean that Uber drivers are no longer required and the ability of restaurants to take bookings online without sharing their customer details and without paying per seat or per table, using Marketing4Restaurants Free Online Restaurant Booking System means that they are no longer forced to use companies who charge to take bookings.
2. Both had had their share of controversies over the ethics of their companies. Ubers are well documented and Dimmi had an issue when it suggested that the Resdiary product that they resell can be used to store customer preferences and information to enable upselling as well as differentiating service based on prior experiences.  Many customers where upset at the prospect of the restaurant spying on them and keeping information.
3. Both companies have created issues around the privacy of customer data. Uber has had issues where executives have been watching journalists movements as they use an Uber driver to bring them in for an interview – it appeared that there were few controls to protect the privacy of the customers data.  More than one Restaurant owner has been shocked to see what kind of offers Dimmi send out to them once they use the Dimmi booking widget to make a booking at their own website.  We made a booking at a Mexican restaurant and received a 50% off coupon within 1 week to a restaurant 3.8 kms away.  I spoke to a restaurant owner this week and she said she ‘felt physically sick’ knowing that Dimmi had been taking the contact details of her customers and sending them 50% off coupons.  In Dimmi’s defence, they are allowed to do this in their Terms and Conditions, it is just that many restaurant owners still don’t know that it is happening.  This is why we recommend that all restaurant owners make a booking using the booking system that they are using to find out what happens to their customer details.

Marketing4Restaurants.com’s Free Online Restaurant Booking System is Australia and New Zealand largest booking system that doesn’t charge per seat or per table and doesn’t send out discount coupons to competing restaurants to your customers.