Zomato: Bite on this.

Am adventurous with food, especially when the adventure sits in another’s plate. Am committed to spending hours browsing over where to eat. On many occasions missing the open hours and compromising on my meal. Defeating the purpose all together, I know. Those are exceptions. Zomato is pinned to my start screen, it serves me well. Payback time.

Here are 10 ideas;  some a gravy train, others will bring home more bacon, some are a piece of cake and perhaps very few that you may chew and spit out.

1. Travel recommendations: A partnership with the travel segment should serve your customers well. Think MakeMyTrip, Expedia, Ibibo, Yatra and more. As a tourist am keen to discover new places to eat, am looking for recommendations. It would be fantastic to get that information right up. Book a package and with it get recommended places. Perhaps even throw some deals into the package itself. Help me discover.
2. Location based promotions: Don’t we all love discounts? How we discover them needs to be easier. Currently one zeroes down on the restaurant and then one knows of the promotions running. Why not have promotions and discounts listed separately? Everyone cares for a better ROI. Your users included.
3. Events: Yes, think category. Shouldn’t everything food be there at Zomato. Now I don’t mean be everything to everyone, but listing food events & walks is not too off. Book My Show and or other event platforms could be great partners. Cross app traffic integration. Win-Win.
4. Mobile wallet: Home delivery or dining-in, mobile is my wallet. Click to pay. Seamless and convenient for users. Rich user history for Zomato. Need I say more?
5. Split the bill: Now assuming you are going the mobile wallet route why not solve for a common problem that of splitting a bill. Pay for what you order. Place the order on the app and get your bill. No bad debts.
6. In App Orders: Give me a check box menu, let me place my order, generate an estimated bill, save my address and credit card details, track my order. Serve it hot. No dialing in for orders, reduces manpower dependency and turnaround time for the restaurants, Simply efficient.
7. Home cooked food: You recommend restaurants but then there is a market for home cooked food, not quite organized agreed but could do with the right user base. There are plenty start-ups but do they have scale? Food for thought?
8. Rude food: There are power users and reviewers but I miss a Vir Sanhgvi like content on Zomato. More academic interest, yes. But that’s how one explores, learns and engages. Please excuse the paid bloggers. They don’t yield the kind of credibility anymore.
9. Personalized recommendations: Inundated with social; more feeds, more check-ins, more point of views on reviews, to what end? You know what I bookmark, what I browse, categories I read, where I go and probably if you included some my suggestions what I eat and how much I spend. I deserve some personalized recommendations don’t you think?
10. Loyalty: Now you are not into a loyalty program but in this day and age of decreasing attention span some form of reward is good. Don’t read this as screaming a discount, How about Gourmet Club invite for power users? Occasions I am likely to dine out, Birthdays & Anniversary are a no brainer? Make my date special, make group check-in count. Take a leaf out of American Express.

Holler your business, marketing and product managers and tell me what you think.