Ovation, a software platform that gathers customer feedback for restaurants and retailers, announced today it has raised $965,000 in seed funding led by Monta Vista Capital and includes 500 Startups.
Ovation recently graduated from the 500 Startups accelerator in San Francisco as part of Batch 24, and uses a combination of QR codes, texting, kiosks, or other integrations to gather customer feedback and measure their experiences through survey tools. There is no app to install, account to create or code needed from paper receipts. Customers who were happy with their experience are invited to share why and encouraged to come back, while dissatisfied customers can immediately engage in an SMS chat with management to determine why.
Based in Provo, Utah, Ovation charges a monthly subscription for its service, and says it has more than 300 customers.
Restaurants face all kinds of new and different pressures from today’s diners. First, more diners are choosing to get their restaurant meal delivered to their home, with QSR magazine reporting that delivery sales are projected to grow at more than three times the rate of on-premises revenue through 2023. So restaurants need to make sure that any diners that come in have a good experience. Ensuring a good customer experience is even more important in a world where a bad review can go viral online, severely damaging a restaurant’s reputation.
Ovation is among a crop of startups looking to help restaurants protect their reputations through instant customer engagement. Presto, which raised $30 million earlier this year, uses a combination of on-table tablets and wearables to provide customers with direct communication with their servers. Other restaurant software systems like Toast also provide in-house feedback tools for restaurants.
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