More reviews and more online reach: how TablePlay activates guests after playing

A satisfied guest is not yet a reviewer. And an enjoyable evening doesn't automatically result in an Instagram tag, WhatsApp share, or online recommendation. For that, the guest needs to take action.

That's exactly why the moment you ask something is so important. TablePlay creates multiple natural moments when a guest is already actively using their phone.

A quiz has ended. The final score appears. The table has won. A scoreboard is updated. And precisely at such a moment, the next step can be offered: leave a review, share your result, challenge someone.

This turns marketing from something that only needs to happen after the visit into a part of the experience itself.

Actively asking for reviews works

There is particularly relevant scientific support for the review feature. A large-scale natural experiment involving hotels on TripAdvisor examined the effect of actively requesting reviews. Hotels that consistently asked for reviews saw the number of reviews increase by about 34%.

That's a particularly strong benchmark for TablePlay. Because TablePlay has something a regular review email often doesn't: the guest is still on-site and has just finished an activity. The review moment can therefore directly follow the experience.

Why 50% more reviews is a strong scenario

If systematically asking for reviews alone can already cause an increase of about a third in existing research, it's interesting to examine what happens when such a request is integrated directly into an interactive guest experience. That's why we use up to 50% more review volume as a strong TablePlay scenario.

That figure is not an existing TablePlay measurement result. It is an ambitious scenario, based on a mechanism whose effect from actively requesting reviews has already been convincingly demonstrated.

Not just more reviews, but possibly better reviews too

There's something else interesting. In the same hotel study, not only did the number of reviews increase. The average rating also improved.

This can partly be explained by the fact that actively requesting reviews reaches a broader group of guests. Without a request, it's relatively often people with a strong personal motivation, positive or negative, who write a review. By actively asking satisfied guests at the right moment, people who would otherwise stay silent can also share their experience.

TablePlay can add an extra element to that: the review request follows an interactive moment that is ideally positive, social and enjoyable.

Why it doesn't say "30% more stars" here

We deliberately don't present this as 30% more stars. Review sites almost always work with a maximum score, which makes such a percentage misleading: with 4.2 out of 5 stars, adding 30% is mathematically impossible.

The better measure is the whole picture: review volume, the development of the average rating, and the share of positive reviews. That's why we talk about review performance and not review score.

A score is also shareable content

TablePlay creates a second digital effect. A normal restaurant evening doesn't always produce something people spontaneously want to share. But this does:

• "We're number one tonight."
• "18 out of 20 on the music quiz."
• "Table 7 beat table 12."
• "Can you beat our score?"

Research on digital products has convincingly shown that integrating social sharing mechanisms into the user experience can significantly increase the spread of content.

That doesn't mean every restaurant automatically goes viral. It does mean that making sharing part of the experience can be much more powerful than just showing social media icons somewhere at the bottom of a website.

From social sharing to local reach

For a restaurant, these actions are interesting because the guest themselves becomes the sender. A shared TablePlay score potentially includes the name of the restaurant, the match, the score, the winner, and maybe an invitation to beat the score. This creates organic visibility around the location.

With tournaments, this effect can also repeat itself. Not one photo during the meal, but multiple moments: start, intermediate standings, final, winner.

That's why in our strong scenario we calculate up to 30% more social actions and reach. This can include shares, tags, mentions, forwarded scores, profile visits and interactions around tournaments.

One game, three digital effects

This means a single TablePlay session can ultimately deliver three things: more reviews, stronger review performance and more social engagement.

And this happens without an employee having to hand out business cards afterward or approach guests again weeks later. At that moment, the guest is already exactly where you want them to be: satisfied, engaged and with their phone in hand.