Imagine you own a restaurant and you get all your reservations online through your booking system; you even tell people to book online when they call, via an automated message. But then, all of a sudden, Google decides to hijack that booking link and replace it with Google Assistant’s calling feature.
So instead of Google linking to the booking system you selected, let’s say OpenTable booking integration. Now Google uses Google Assistant to try to call the restaurant and speak to a person. But no person will answer the call, the call goes to a message to tell people to book online. So the next thing that happens is that Google gives up calling, thinks there are no reservations available and tells those trying to book online that there are no reservations available.
While that is shit, if I call a restaurant to make a reservation and they just tell me to go to their website, I’m probably going elsewhere anyway.
Why even have a phone number if it is useless?
Tried calling a new Indian place in town and they wanted a credit card to book a reservation. Didn’t end up going.
Not sure about your situation specifically, but restaurants requiring a credit card during reservation is on the rise to combat reservation scalping and the no-shows that res scalping causes.
That is a thing? Restaurant reservation scalping ? Who is the market for that? I can buy restaurant reservations on eBay now?
I, on the other hand, prefer to do it online and wouldn’t mind this. Horses for courses.
Why even have a phone number if it is useless?
Really? Are reservations the only use for a phone?
The restaurant seems to think so if it just plays an automated message to book a reservation online
Yeah possibly. The article doesn’t specify it but I’ve seen systems that would give you the automated message but still put you through if you stayed on the line.
Why even have a phone number if it is useless?
Really? Are reservations the only use for a phone?
A publicly shared phone number for the restaurant? Pretty much. It has limited uses for checking hours and holidays and such, but the primary use is going to be checking availability to eat at the restaurant. If that’s not something you can get over the phone, 99% of the reason to have a public facing phone number is negated.
At a restaurant? Uh yeah.
Google is so shite, damn phone app kept dialling China instead of local numbers here in Ireland.
Today, I noticed that a restaurant I manage had its OpenTable booking integration replaced with Google Assistant.
Replaced in what context? My understanding is that OpenTable still works just fine but Google is, on its end, no longer automatically referring its own users to OpenTable. I wouldn’t call that “hijacking” unless the restaurant had a prior agreement with Google.
No Available Reservations
That’s not the error message. Google says that you can’t get a reservation through Google Assistant not that there are no reservations available.
Replaced in what context?
This was really confusing to me too from the context of the article. Here’s what I’m guessing. At the top of the article it has this:
So even though the article doesn’t say it, I’m guessing if a user were to search Google maps and find the restaurant, inside the details where was previously a link to “Book a reservation”…through Opentable. The article is saying that for this person’s restaurant Google is no longer showing the Opentable link, and instead showing a Google link driving by the AI. Those screenshots being what the user would see if they try to put in a reservation.
The logical suggestion is if the user were to:
- navigate directly to Opentable, they could successfully make reservation.
- navigate to the restaurant’s website and try to book a reservation, they’d be redirected to Opentable where they would successfully make a reservation.
So the issue, I think, is trying to book a reservation directly from Google Maps results.
