Restaurant Pagers

California-based restaurant technology company Servisensor has recently announced the launch of its waitstaff calling system, the ServiceLight. What’s unique about this pager system is that it allows restaurant customers to communicate with the staff, as opposed to systems that are designed for communication between staff, or from staff to customer. It’s much like the little attention buttons that you find above your seat in passenger jets.

Essentially, the ServiceLight is a table-top device powered by four AA batteries with three colored lights on the top. One for Service, one for Refill and one for Cheque. Being portable, the device is left at the table with the menus when guests are seated. So the concept is quite simple in that the restaurant customer presses the relevant button when their table needs attention, thereby illuminating the button and notifying staff or managemet.

Whilst I love to see innovation in restaurant operations, I do feel that staff and management should be sufficiently intuitive to know when a table needs attention anyway, and this probably isn’t a device that you will see in many five-star restaurants anytime soon.

However, for those restaurants catering in other markets and where efficiency in table management is crucial, Servisensor could be on to something with their ServiceLight. The unit is brandable as well, so there is potential for selling advertising space here I guess.

At $100 per unit though, this does mean a significant capital outlay for even medium-sized restaurants, particularly if they have already invested in other pager systems.

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).

An interesting study recently released by the The Center for Hospitality Research, a unit of Cornell School of Hotel Administration.

A comparison of eleven technologies commonly used in restaurants found that restaurant customers find virtual menus with nutritional information to be the most valuable of new technologies, followed closely by online reservations, kiosks for ordering, and pagers for table management.

View the complete report here