Philadelphia, PA – LoSo, Inc. is pleased to announce the completion of its Restaurant Dashboard, a one-stop CRM solution designed to help restaurant and bar owners easily and more effectively leverage social media to fill tables and grow their business. LoSo is a robust mobile app that takes the best features of Foursquare, Yelp, OpenTable and Citysearch, and improves and expands on them to deliver the largest social media connected restaurant and bar guide.
LoSo pulls in realtime Facebook and Twitter feeds from over 200,000 places, allowing restaurants to easily get the word out about current specials and events. LoSo users can navigate an interactive map of local venues and see what’s happening around town right now, from tonight’s specials and what bands are playing to recent photos, reviews, and popularity rankings based on customer checkins. LoSo also rewards people for going out with a loyalty program designed to drive new blood and repeat business.
“We spent a year developing our app and Restaurant Dashboard,” said Rich Rodgers, LoSo Founder and CEO. “We looked at what restaurants had done right and what they’d done wrong in terms of CRM, and built an entire backend system for them that really works. LoSo is a one-stop shop for all of a restaurant or bar’s social and online media needs.”
With LoSo’s CRM solution, restaurants can post to their twitter or Facebook wall right from the dashboard’s front page, and they’re encouraged to do so often. According to Rodgers, most popular restaurants are posting at least 2 or 3 times a day. The dashboard also features a client messenger designed to let restaurants more effectively implement e-mail marketing, with the option to choose from well-designed templates or create their own. And, when a customer checks in to a place through LoSo, they can be decide to join the place’s e-mail list right then and there, right from their mobile phone. “We know most restaurants are using email marketing even if they have yet to start social media marketing. We built into our platform an email marketing system that rivals the top competitor’s offerings but at a much lower price and focused solely on restaurant and bars. It does amaze me that there are restaurants without an email list or a Facebook page- we hope to change that and make it easy to quickly manage both in just a few minutes a day.”
One of LoSo’s most exciting features is its Loyalty Rewards Program, created to not just get new diners in the door but to keep them coming back. Every time a customer checks in to a bar or restaurant using the app’s IMHere tab and stays there for at least 10 minutes, they earn 10 Restaurant Rewards Points and 10 LoSo Points. Restaurants and Bars that become Loyalty Partners can create their own reward offerings, such as free appetizers for 10 points, free margaritas for 20 points, and VIP entrance for 40 points.
LoSo even lets partners run daily and hourly deals for discounted food and drink. Locals can buy a deal right from their phone then redeem it instantly at the bar or restaurant.
“We talked to lots of restaurant owners who say they aren’t seeing the value in Groupon. Deals that are good for six months mean the restaurant doesn’t get paid any time soon. And these group bargains discount your brand without building repeat business,” said Rodgers. “Restaurants love our hourly deals because they bring in customers today and can help fill tables when you’re having a slow night.”
LoSo also puts meaning behind the checkins, providing useful metrics that give stats like which days are most popular and total checkins per month. “Restaurant and bar owners can now see who checks in the most, where they are getting the most checkins from and can now utilize this data to drive new and repeat business through the LoSo Restaurant Dashboard”
Starting at just $50 a month, LoSo’s CRM service is comparable to or less than other marketing solutions like Constant Contact that aren’t as comprehensive or restaurant focused.
A pre-launch version of the app is currently available for free download on the iPhone and iPad. Full versions of LoSo for both Droid and Apple operating systems will be introduced at the 2011 National Restaurant Association (NRA) Show, kicking off May 21st.
LoSo has been extremely well received by restaurants and users in LoSo’s first test market, Philadelphia, and the company plans to expand to Baltimore/D.C. and Dallas in the spring, followed by ten new cities next fall.
For more information about LoSo, visit www.LoSo.Net
About LoSo, Inc.
Locally. Socially. Get Rewards for Going Out! LoSo is a location-based social media app that shows you what is around you, what is going on and rewards you for going out. It’s the only app featuring 200,000 places with real-time feeds of what is going on at local bars and restaurants. Now you can see happy hours, drink specials, dinner specials, what bands are playing and more, all in one app, right from your phone. We also list over 700,000 bars and restaurants and make it easy to find the most popular place around you by ranking them by total checkins. Earn rewards while doing what you love to do–eating and drinking with your friends. Save money with LoSo’s local hourly deals good for up to 50% off food and drink at local restaurants and bars.
