Product Strategy: A Touch-Free Pub Visit From Arrival to Settling the Bill

Design a contactless dining experience for pubs, taking a pub chain such as Social as the kind of venue meant. Explain what contactless should mean in a pub, who the users are, which parts of a visit you would change first, and how you would measure whether it works. ```hint Follow a group through an evening Trace a group of friends from arriving at the door to leaving. At each step, where do guests and staff touch the same objects, hand things over or need to talk, and which of those steps also make guests wait on a busy night? ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Does contactless mean no interaction with staff at all, or removing the contact points that matter most (shared menus, flagging down staff, card machines, cash) while staff still bring food and drinks? - What is driving it: hygiene worries such as during a pandemic, shorter waits on busy nights, or lower staffing costs? - Are we building this as Yelp, as a product for venues on top of listings, waitlists and reservations, or as the pub chain itself? - How do guests typically use these pubs: groups ordering rounds over an evening, quick after-work drinks, or full meals? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A clear definition of contactless and a goal, with guests, staff and the venue treated as separate users. - A journey map of a pub visit that shows the contact points and waits at each step, from getting a table to paying. - Prioritized solutions that handle what makes pubs different: group orders, repeat rounds, running tabs and split bills. - A north-star metric with supporting metrics for speed and spend, and guardrails on complaints, staff workload and alcohol service. - Risks such as age checks, guests without smartphones, loss of hospitality, and fitting into the venue's existing systems. ### Follow-up Questions - Serving alcohol requires checking age and refusing guests who have had too much. How does ordering from a phone keep both working? - A table of six keeps ordering rounds and wants to pay separately at the end. How does your design handle the tab and the split? - If staff take fewer orders, what happens to recommendations, upselling and the pub's atmosphere, and how would you find out?