As we were wrapping up our Monday project meeting, we discussed where to get lunch and it was unanimous that we’d be ordering from Chipotle. Actually, the first choice was pizza, but I objected because of this self-regulated diet that I’m on and I had broken several of my own rules by eating leftovers from Kate’s company party on Friday; macaroni, fried chicken, Maryland steamed crabs, and more macaroni. (Stacy Miller at Ridgerunner Publishing has a great macaroni & cheese recipe, by the way!)
But back to Chipotle.
Chipotle has a nice, clean, easy-to-use website. It has many of the same features that most other restaurant sites do such as a location finder, the menu, and nutritional information (actually, this is a feature many restaurant websites are still lacking).
But the feature that stands out to me the most is their online ordering. Not only is it extremely user-friendly, but Chipotle has a feature for Group orders, and I was eager to test it out!
I created a group name, 2nd Floor, and then entered in the email addresses of the folks I want to place orders. If everyone is ordering from the same business, you can simply enter the domain name in one field (2ndfloormedia.com), and then the user names in another field separated by commas (Tim, Joe, Court) eliminating the need to fully type out email addresses one by one. Nice touch!
I finished creating the group and it sent an email to everyone that I’ve invited, providing a custom link to click on which takes them to the menu. They selected what they want and it goes into the Group order “Bag”. When all of their choices were made, I proceeded to checkout, chose a time for pick-up, and paid online (you can also choose to pay when you pick it up). The system also allows you to save your favorite meals, or those of family members, friends, co-workers, your hungry dog — he’s a family member too!
Finally, our food arrived back at the office, with each item labeled with the names we entered on the site for our individual orders, so we didn’t need to figure out who got what. Customer service? Check!
I know this doesn’t seem like much of a breakthrough, especially with how advanced web apps have become, but what I found cool about this particular experience was the thought that someone put into the entire process. They didn’t just slap together a quick form that sends a generic email; they clearly did some usability testing and deployed a system that they knew their customers would enjoy using.
Try it out for yourself and see what you think.
