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.

Having managed several restaurants of varying seating capacity over time, I’ve come to notice that probably the two biggest complaints you will receive from guests is the length of time it took for your guests to be seated, and for the time it took for meals to be delivered to a table.

Now these delays can come down to any number of factors – many of which are outside your control. But as a manager or maitre de, the last thing you want is complaints. You want an efficient, smooth-running restaurant, and happy customers who return time after time and rave to all their friends and colleagues about how great your restaurant is!

So what I have found really helpful is the introduction of a restaurant paging system that assists in the smooth management of a restaurant of any size.

Now, a good restaurant pager essentially has two functions:

Say for instance that it’s a busy night (and that’s what we want!), and all your tables are full. More guests are still walking in off the street, and as you have nowhere to seat them, the best you can do is pencil in the next available table and invite your guests to sit down in the bar (if you have one), and say we’ll come and get you when your table is ready. One of the problems here is that when a table is ready, it isn’t always easy to find the guests you sent to the bar. It’s even more frustating when they’ve just walked off without a word and you’ve spent the last 20 minutes looking for them.

The easy solution is a restaurant pager. These come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but the most common I’ve seen are designed pretty much like your standard bar coaster. Simply hand your guest one of these pagers, and when the table is ready, you just press a button and they get a discreet buzz to let them know the table is ready. You don’t have to go searching for your guests, and your guests know that they’ll know straight away when their table is ready. It’s a win-win situation.

The 2nd benefit of a restaurant pager is to improve the communication between your kitchen and wait-staff. This is literally worth it’s weight in gold. Basically, all your wait staff will carry around a pager during their shift, and when a meal is ready for one of their tables, the kitchen simply presses the page button.

No more meals going spoilt under hot-lamps,  no more wasted minutes standing idle in the kitchen waiting for mains away and happy customers receiving their meals as soon as they are ready.

So if you are looking at ways to improve staff productivity and communication, and customer satisfaction in your restaurant, you should seriously check out the range of restaurant pager systems available.