Restaurant Pagers

Depending on the unique circumstances of your operation, you may find yourself considering buying a used restaurant pager system. This no doubt presents quite a few pros and cons.

Investment in any part of your restaurant business should be tackled with sensible, long-term procurement objectives, which can mean that cheapest doesn’t always equal the best.

Anyway, first, let’s look at the cons.

Like anything that is used or not new, there is going to be a usage history to it that you’re probably unaware of (unless you’ve purchased from someone you know). Units may have been dropped, repaired or even not have worked properly in the first place. Buying 2nd-hand really doesn’t give you much come-back if this is the case.

Consider also the battery-usage in the units you are buying too – many pagers don’t use standard AA or AAA batteries, and could use expensive proprietary batteries. It could well be that the pager batteries have reached the end of their useful life.

More than likely, any warranty or after-sales support is well and truly expired, and will come at a cost to renew or continue.

And unlike a new system, you’re unlikely to get any installation or training support (at least without a cost). Having said that, pager systems aren’t really that hard to use, but there can be a bit involved in getting them tailored specifically to your needs for a start.

Make sure that there is no finance owing on the system. For example, if you buy from a restaurant that is about to go into liquidation, you could find the liquidators on your door a few weeks down the track.

Consider also if there are still readily available spares or replacement parts. Is the unit still in production? Or has it been replaced by a new model. And are they compatible?

Pros

To be honest, I don’t have many positive points for buying a used restaurant pager system.

Obviously, a used restaurant pager system is going to be a heck of a lot cheaper than a brand new one. This means that you can use your budget to possibly buy a better system. So you could buy a brand-name pager that you may have some knowledge of it’s reputation without having to buy a system you have never heard of.

Ultimately, it’s a business risk where you need to weigh the negatives with the positives, and only you can make that call.

If cost is a big factor in your decision, maybe another option to consider would be leasing, or a cellphone based paging system.

You should also bear in mind that the cost of technology really is coming down all the time. Highly versatile paging systems can be bought at a fraction of the cost that they would have cost 3-5 years ago.

If you are set on buying a used restaurant pager system, at least see if you can look at the same (or a similar) one in operation (much the same as if you were buying a new one).

The primary aim of this website is to present you with all the information you might be looking for regarding restaurant pagers.

Initially, you may be asking, just what is a restaurant pager? And how is this going to help me run my restaurant?

Well, this nifty little device can come in all shapes and sizes, and carry out a variety of different functions too. Essentially, a restaurant pager will carry out two main tasks in a restaurant. Communication between wait staff and their customers, and also just between the staff themselves.

Used to its full potential, a restaurant paging system should lead to a dramatic increase in productivity in your operation – thereby justifying what can seem an exorbitant initial outlay. Of course, no two systems are alike, so hopefully this website will help you decide which is best suited to your operation.

I’ll note here too that the face of restaurant paging is no doubt in for some fairly dramatic changes in the near future too, predominantly with the increasing use of cell phone and Internet technology. These are areas I’ll be looking to explore in further posts.

I’ve set up this site to help those that may be looking to buy a restaurant pager system. Hopefully I can help make the process a little easier for you and you can make an informed decision before you hand over the cash. So, on this website, I’ll attempt to try and cover everything related to restaurant paging systems. Eventually this will include pager reviews, tips on maintenance and just about anything in general that I feel may be relevant.

If you like to know a bit about me, check out the about me page. And feel free to drop me a line if you want to say hi or perhaps have some feedback (good or bad).

If there’s something specific that you’re looking for on this site, try using the search box.

And if you have any questions, again please feel free to contact me, or leave a comment. Hopefully myself or one of the other readers will be able to help you out with your restaurant pager query!

In any service industry, and the restaurant trade is no exception, our livelihood depends on being able to deliver a quality product in a timely manner.

That’s why I’m so passionate about the use of paging systems in restaurants.

In fact, it’s not just restaurants that can use them. If you’re involved in any sort of food or beverage operation, then I’m sure you can see the benefits that a paging system would bring to your business, and your bottom line.

Anyway, what I’m intending to briefly cover here is what sort of benefits restaurant paging would bring to your business.

To simplify it, increased staff productivity and efficiency leads to happy and content customers.

Wait staff that find their workload easier and more efficient to carry out are happier. And they pass that on to your customers. Again, it’s a win-win.

And as we know happy, content customers return. And they tell their friends. And then we have a restaurant that is humming.

However, upset, discontent and grumpy customers are likely to never return. And they won’t just tell their friends about the bad service they had at your establishment, they’ll tell their hairdresser, doctor and even the mother-in-law they despise so much.

So it’s important we can recognise the things we can put in place as managers/owners to eliminate those bad customer service experiences.

And where do most of those bad experiences come from? Guests waiting too long for meals or too long to be seated.

So the biggest improvement you can make to your restaurant, outside of the kitchen (and I’m assuming you have top-gun chefs – if not, get in that Gordon Ramsey guy!), is getting your wait-staff to work smarter.

So a restaurant paging system could be the right step for you?

But what to look for?

Obviously, budget is a huge consideration, but you also need to consider the scope of your restaurant operation and exactly how you want your staff to utilize a new tool.

I.e. how many staff do you have? If you only run a restaurant with a dozen or so staff, there is no point buying a restaurant pager system that’s designed to handle 32 portable pagers.

How do you want the pager to communicate with staff? Is a simple vibrate enough, or do you want something that delivers a message as well, i.e. Table 12 mains ready.

Do you want managerial supervision of the pagers. For example, some systems have a Manager’s Pager that receives alerts that can be custom-set for all sorts of reasons, i.e. wait-staff pager not answered after a set period.

Just like any business expense, there are many tangibles to consider. First and foremost though, should be the improvement of service to your customers.