I was about to get back to work when I realized I had to make dinner reservations as it was my Dad’s 68th birthday last week. Mom was eager to try out some Nyonya food as we all tend to go for typical Chinese food whenever we have any major celebrations in the family.
She mentioned Hot Wok which as everyone knows, is practically Nic’s favourite restaurant of all time (we bring our clients here most of the time). Hot Wok used to be in a bungalow along Tanjung Tokong a few years back but it moved to Burmah Road recently. We have not been there in ages.
So I was scouring the web for Hot Wok’s phone number. I found their website and of course, being who I am, and being in our business, my eyes and ears are always tuned to auditing websites.
The first thing which struck me is that, Hot Wok is a restaurant but it didn’t have a Menu page!
There were rotating photos of their food but no description, nothing. (Bad for search engine optimization as it won’t attract them at all.)
While it is fine and dandy to have been awarded Best Restaurant by Malaysian Tatler Magazine in 1998 and 2004 and featured in TVB Hong Kong food channel in 2007, people love looking at food and reading food descriptions. That’s why foodie blogs are so popular in Malaysia.
Their rotating food photos do not do justice to their food. Trust me, I’ve been there and I’ve had the most lip-smacking Nyonya dishes this side of Penang. Besides, linking out to food blogs or food reviews isn’t as captivating as having selected menu or the entire menu (after all what’s wrong with having the entire menu there?) on the website to tantalize people.
And there was this annoying little hummingbird ‘flying’ about the photos. And a Pause and Play button so I could rotate the photos or stop them! Hmmm…. tell me, what is that for?
And the visitor counter on the side. Do we still need visitor counters? Isn’t it time for something more subtle and sophisticated like Google Analytics?
And the photos! If you have it, you flaunt it. Why do most people like to hide their best assets? For restaurants, if you have a gorgeous decor and setting, go ahead and take the best photos you can and tempt people to come and see it for themselves. That is what photos are used for.
But the best part is yet to come.
Their Contact page and Tell A Friend page do not work!
Oh dear! This is an example of how you can just lose business without even trying. Imagine all the happy people who want to recommend their friends to view this website or even ask about their dishes and then they discover, oops, the Contact page does not exist.
Anyway, I decided to stop there and then. It was getting on my nerves and I didn’t want to spoil my happy dining memories of this good restaurant.
While Hot Wok’s Nyonya food is second to none, I wish I could say the same for their website!