The Chope Group, Asia’s premier restaurant reservations provider, today announced its acquisition of Appic Technologies and its popular Ticktokqueuing service, to add to its portfolio of time-saving technologies for diners.
Building on its online reservations and marketing platform, Chope is teaming up with the young brand to offer phone-based queue monitoring to its restaurants and diners. Busy diners can simply enter their details into a Ticktok tablet outside the restaurant, then continue shopping or grab a coffee. They can check how many people are ahead of them anytime via their smartphone, and when their turn arrives they also receive an SMS and automated phone call.
Appic Technologies, a Singapore-based startup, developed Ticktok to make the all-too-common experience of queuing for good food less painful. “We started Ticktok because we are foodies at heart, but popular spots usually require a long and boring wait. We thought that, in this age of smartphones and 4G, there had to be a more mobile-friendly way to queue.” said Appic’s CEO and Co-founder Jun Kiat Lee. It is now used by dozens of busy cafes and eateries where standing in line used to be the norm, processing tens of thousands of diners every month. Restaurants who have found value in such a solution range from trendy cafés like Department of Caffeine and Symmetry to large groups like Tung Lok, and even traditional eateries like Swee Choon Dim Sum.
The Ticktok solution has clear overlaps with Chope’s existing reservation service. “We found in Appic a team who hate queuing as much as us,” said Arrif Ziaudeen, CEO and Co-founder of Chope. “We help get around that by making reservations easy and 24/7, but now we’re going even further – even if you have to queue, you should be free to wander and relax.” Both solutions also increase F&B productivity by reducing man-hours spent answering phones, writing customer details, answering questions, and calling diners to return.
The first phase of Chope’s integration with Ticktok has already been completed, allowing restaurants to use a single iPad to manage both queues and reservations more efficiently. Zi Xin Chong, Co-founder and CTO of Appic Technologies, is looking forward to seeing the effects: ”Our fully-integrated solution provides both users and merchants with an unprecedented level of convenience. Merchants are able to easily manage both queues and reservations as well as plug into Chope’s strong network of partners and diners.” Mr Ziaudeen agrees, “With Chope’s regional presence, we could get Ticktok installed at more shopping malls whose retail tenants will benefit from additional traffic, now that diners no longer have to wait by the restaurant for their turn.”
