Creating “that Uber effect” within a live venue at The Rowing Pavilion

The Rowing Pavilion in Western Australia opened in December 2022 as a “pretty humble venue” that prides itself on a few key things: sustainability, community, and produce.

We chatted with three movers and shakers who brought to life an incredible venue in which me&u plays a very small part. If you’re a visual learner, ignore the words below and watch the three-minute video for some good vibes.

‍Going from sceptics to fanboys

‍The owner of The Rowing Pavilion was brutally honest about his thoughts on me&u going into go-live.

“Approaching the opening, we were sceptical about putting it in,” Mark Pearn said.

“And then we put it in and, in short, if we didn't have it, we wouldn't be doing the numbers we're doing.

“You would be five deep at the bar on a Saturday night, you would be complaining about service, and the whole experience would be terrible.

“And we've managed to introduce it as a core element of our steps of service, but still providing great service and getting to know everyone, so it's been an absolute game-changer.

”But not everything goes through me&u, and that’s more than okay for Venue Manager, Jake Cruz.

“We have a bit of a 50-50 split. So, 50% of people go up to the bar and order the old-school way, then 50% will sit down and use the QR codes, which is great,” Jake said,

But won’t ordering through a QR code mean lower quality service and connection?

“If you pride yourselves on service and connection, which we do, you can still do that,” Mark said. “You can still greet at the door. You can still clear plates, you can still check back on them and go “how's your meal going?”

“So it's just for that one transaction and there's this fear of taking away connection and it just doesn't.”

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‍That “Uber effect

”Mark believes the addition of the digital layer within a physical setting takes the benefits of ordering food online from home, and brings it into your live venue.

“It's got that Uber effect,” Mark said.” When you're at home doing the Uber Eats and you're adding this and adding that - the same happens here.

“It's about 20-30% more per transaction because you’ve got your favourites, you've got your top sellers and that just drives people to add stuff on.”

This ability to order in your own time, with more context (Pictures! Descriptions! Smart suggestions!), means people order more spendy things.

“You definitely see people that will buy the bottle of wine rather than just going up and going, I'll have a glass of that,” Jake said.

“They can make decisions that they might not make up at the bar, like maybe a bottle of expensive French champagne rather than just a glass of house bubbles.”

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‍Staying front-of-mind with marketing automations

‍In addition to using our Serve product, The Rowing Pavilion also uses our Connect CRM for their marketing automations.

“We use automations within Connect to ensure that people that haven't visited the venue in a while are still getting information from us,” said Laura Potts, Events Manager.

“And we can, in short, they're seeing what we really want them to see.

“For example, we had a wine night recently when we were targeting people that have purchased that brand of wine. And that led us to sell out that event within two weeks.”

“We found using Connect really easy… it's almost an automatic way to access the data you've already got. And the platform itself, the setup is very user-friendly.”

To get started with me&u, contact us here.