From the perspective of a restaurant customer:

If you had told me in January that 2020 was going to the year of a pandemic, that wearing a mask to the supermarket would be necessary, and we’d all be forced into quarantine for weeks on end, I would have laughed out loud. This year has been nothing but strange, I think we all agree on that, and as we begin to transition into “normalcy,” we are all curious as to what the new normal will look like. And as nerve wracking as it may be, I personally can say I am excited. I’m excited to see friends and family, I’m excited to go to the beach, and I’m most excited to get back to restaurants. 

I’ve always had an immense passion and love for food, and as much as I love to cook, I am very over it. As cities and states begin to roll out their reopening plans, restaurants are opening their doors to customers for both patio and indoor dining options. But even as restrictions lift, there are still rules and regulations in place to keep both guests and staff safe, which I appreciate deeply. Although I am excited to sit with friends and enjoy a meal at my favorite places, I also want to ensure that we are being safe and remaining healthy.

My favorite restaurant might not look identical to pre Coronavirus times, nor are the rules in place going to be the same. But, as a guest, it’s important to respect and embrace these differences. My server will more than likely be wearing a mask, I may not be able to sit at a table with 10+ of my closest friends, and I may be asked to wait in my car, rather than at the bar, for my table. All of these changes are ok! I will survive! The restaurants are doing the best they can during a seriously challenging time and it’s important as guests to show up, show support, and show understanding. 

The list of differences from past to present can go on and on, but I think focusing on the future and adapting to what many are calling the “new normal” is what is most important. Restaurants are equipped with the best systems, staff, and regulations and we now have to be the best customers and come equipped with all they ask for. 

Top Three Things to Remember When Dining Out:

Social Distance: Remember to stay 6 ft. away from anyone outside of your party, when possible. To help both the customers and the staff during this transition, restaurants may invest in an app like Waitlist Me. Waitlist Me provides staff with easy and effective ways to manage their waitlist and reservations both in Coronavirus and non-pandemic times. Being able to send a text message to a guest when their table is ready so they don’t have to wait inside is a great feature for reducing crowds. 

Hygiene, hygiene, and more hygiene! It may be the restaurant’s job to sanitize more frequently and ensure their staff is healthy; but it is your job to always wash your hands, and to check your own health before walking in the doors.

Respect the guidelines put in place by each individual restaurant. Many restaurants are urging guests to wear masks when possible. Some are asking you to please sanitize your hands before entering. And, others have detailed layouts for guests to follow to help prevent exposure. The list goes on, so pay attention and read the signs! 

You might look at this list and scoff, but remember, the restaurant may not look the same and the rules might not be the same but the food IS still the same, and that’s really what is important. So if you’re like me and you have a deep admiration for all things food, then get out and support your favorite spot (and all their new quirks) – again, and again, again. 

Customers that won’t shrink from your wait times, reservations you don’t have to scramble for, and relaxed hosts who’ve got the situation under control. Want to get all that and more before St. Patty’s Day? You don’t need a four-leaf clover or rabbit’s foot. What you need is Waitlist Me.

Here are the features that’ll keep your crowd celebrating—and coming back long after St. Patrick leaves town. Trust us: It’s all that and a pot o’ gold.

At-a-glance waitlist and reservation management keeps employees calm and collected

A frazzled host and a messy front desk is a big red flag for guests who come to you for a fun night on the town. Help your front-of-house crew keep their cool with the waitlist tool that makes checking reservations and adding folks to waitlists simple.  Seeing actual waits next to estimated times helps you give more accurate estimates, and using status colors and notes to organize and keep tabs on waiting customers helps you get them seated more efficiently.

Bonus! Waitlist Me is designed for people like you, me, and your hostess to use intuitively with mere minutes of training. See it in action in this overview video.

Simple texting makes customer communication a cinch

Taking a call from the jammed backseat of an Uber or the midst of a crowded sidewalk can be a struggle. That’s why Waitlist Me Premium lets you text your guests when their table is ready and lets them text back to let you know if they’re on their way or need to cancel. All you have to do is tap a button and boom! Your customers are ready to jig their way to their seats. No muss, no fuss, no empty tables.

Bonus! Text notifications set customers free and keeps frustration at bay. No more hovering around your hostess stand, no more long lines stretched around the corner, and no more crowded lobbies turning off new walk-ins. They can window shop, head to the bar, or wander around the block ‘til you let ‘em know their table is up. Phew!

Public waitlist keeps customers looped in—and off your back

The No.-1 question your host doesn’t want to answer this St. Patty’s Day: Is my table ready yet? A close second: Where are we on the list? Waitlist Me keeps customers in-the-know automatically thanks to one of our most popular features. Once they’re added to your waitlist, they’ll receive a text confirmation that includes a link to your public waitlist. In real time, they’ll see exactly where they are in line along with their wait time.

Bonus! Waitlist Me Pro lets you customize your public waitlist with your restaurant’s branding, videos, images, and text. Use it to post food and drink specials, upcoming events, and more on any available monitor or TV screen.

Multi-device sync and multi-location capabilities for easy management

Whether you’re in charge of one St. Patty’s Day hotspot or a bunch of them, Waitlist Me can help you keep tabs on every table at every location. The app is available on iOS, Android, and Web browsers, and accessible from multiple devices at once. That means you, your hosts, and your management team can keep tabs on how the holiday’s going from wherever you are.

The demise of fast fashion darling Forever 21 might have you reaching for a Xanax, but should it? Not necessarily. After all, while one empire has fallen, some fast fashion brands are thriving.

Look at Target! Their private label pivot in 2018 has been hugely successful. Look at Old Navy! The Gap, Inc. brainchild plans to open 800 stores in the next decade. Look at Gymboree! The beloved clothing brand for babies and toddlers is making a comeback as a pop-up shop concept within The Children’s Place retail outlets.

See? There’s no need to panic. From new merchandising tactics to rebooted branding and marketing initiatives, there are all sorts of ways to keep a fast fashion business profitable. One of our favorite ways to keep your retail venture in the green is to improve your customer experience.

Not sure how to wow your customers? Keep reading for our favorite strategies.

Make customers feel welcome

One prominent reason many consumers turn to online shopping: pushy sales tactics that make them feel uncomfortable. While you should always greet walk-ins with a smile and a cheery “hello,” it’s time to reconsider retail standards that feel like the opening of a sales pitch. Instead of, “Can I help you with anything in particular?” try deploying friendly small talk. A comment about the rainy weather or a compliment on the cute sweater they’re wearing will make the customer’s experience feel more conversational than transactional.

And speaking of conversation, there’s no reason for your employees to avoid it. We’ve all been the only customer in an otherwise-empty shop, shrinking under the microscopic gaze of associates. Awkward! While private conversations should be kept off the sales floor, bantering about TV shows, sports teams, and other harmless topics can make customers feel at ease in your store. Remind them, though, that their body language is important: They need to look approachable 24/7 and they should always be paying attention to customers, ready to offer help on finding a size or snagging a dressing room.

Eliminate long lines

Online fast fashion retailers like Amazon and ASOS struggle with shopping cart abandonment. Brick-and-mortar retailers should be concerned about a similar situation: long waits for fitting rooms and cash registers. 

Lines have the tendency to intimidate rather than to encourage. Many shoppers will load up their arms with potential purchases, then turn to the line for the changing room and wonder if all these goodies are worth the interminable wait. One solution is to use a waitlist and appointment management app like Waitlist Me, which makes long lines disappear by taking them digital. Retail staffers can hold on to the merchandise customers are interested in and let them continue browsing while they wait. A quick text lets shoppers know when they reach the front of the line.

Improve staff productivity

Top-notch customer service starts with staffing. If your sales associates are overrun by to-dos or traffic, they’ll be too frazzled to show the level of service that results in sales and customer retention. Adding an app like Waitlist Me to your toolbox can help retail store managers make smarter real-time decisions based on how busy the store is.

Waitlist Me allows managers to easily view things like how many customers are waiting for help or a fitting room, and how long fitting rooms have been occupied. Keeping tabs on traffic patterns means that they know where bottlenecks are emerging so they can direct employees accordingly before customer experiences start to suffer.

Running a restaurant isn’t the same as it was 10 years ago. Technology has shaped customer expectations around service in all parts of their lives, and people are less willing to put up with unnecessary waiting to get the goods and services they want. Fortunately, there are applications like Waitlist Me that help restaurants and other businesses raise the bar and deliver at a higher level of service that meets modern expectations.

Cut the clutter and stay organized 

A frazzled host and a messy greeting area is a big red flag for guests who come to you for an enjoyable evening out. Forget grease pens and paper planners. Waitlist Me eliminates hostess stand clutter and makes it easy to add and seat dining parties. Your front-of-house staff can see your business’ waitlist in a single glance and add customers to it with a swipe.

Over-deliver on wait expectations

With Waitlist Me, even a rookie host can quote accurate wait times and set the right expectations. The app shows real-time waits next to quoted times to make it easy to improve and know when things are running ahead or slow. Using status colors and notes to organize and keep tabs on waiting customers helps you get them seated more efficiently. You can’t always control the wait time, but you can improve the wait experience by serving customers on time, when you say you will.

Set your guests free

Kids aren’t the best at standing quietly in a restaurant lobby, and adults don’t want to be cooped up either. That’s why Waitlist Me lets guests relax and wander about if they like. The text notification feature does away with diners’ worries about losing their place in queue. No more hovering around your hostess stand, no more long queues stretched around the corner, and no more crowded lobbies turning off new walk-ins. Whether they choose to window shop, walk down the block, or hang out in the car, one quick text lets them know when their table is ready. All you have to do is tap a button. No muss, no fuss, no empty tables.

Give people visibility into their wait

The No.-1 question your host doesn’t want to answer when it’s busy: Is my table ready yet? A close second: Where are we on the list? Waitlist Me keeps customers in-the-know automatically with its popular public waitlist feature. Once they’re added to your waitlist, they’ll receive a text confirmation that includes a link to your public waitlist that they can check in their phone browser (no app download required). In real time, they’ll see exactly where they are in the queue along with their wait time.

Avoid lost reservations

The worst problem customers face on busy nights or big holidays is lost reservations. When your restaurant relies on overstuffed date books and grease boards, though, hostesses get used to saying, “What was the name again? I’m not seeing it in the book.” Your guests deserve better, and Waitlist Me helps you stay organized and manage your reservations in one location that you can access from multiple iPads or Android tablets. You can even login from your home computer or your smart phone to keep tabs on your reservations.

The restaurant world is getting a tech upgrade, and it’s powered by AI. OpenTable’s new AI Concierge feature is a big step forward in exposure of the new type of capabilities that are now possible with vertically integrated AI, and it follows the type of features we proved were possible when we launched Perklist’s AI Assistant earlier this year in March.

OpenTable’s Concierge: Summarizing User Reviews

OpenTable, the go-to for reservations, has introduced its AI-powered Concierge. This assistant is integrated directly into the OpenTable app and website and is designed to answer a diner’s questions about a restaurant, like “What are popular dishes?” or “Can I get a vegetarian meal here?” It’s a handy tool that saves diners from having to call the restaurant or dig through different websites.

However, a key point here is where the Concierge currently gets much if not all of its information from customer reviews. The big advantage of this approach is it works with data that OpenTable already has for the restaurants using its platform, but it can be a bit of a double-edged sword for a restaurant. The AI might provide details based on a past review that may not be entirely accurate or up-to-date. A restaurant has less direct control over how this information is presented, and the AI’s response might not always perfectly align with what the business wants to communicate. Still the simplicity of just turning on this feature for existing customers with many reviews is key, and OpenTable can allow restaurants to refine or better control the feature over time.

Perklist’s AI Assistant: Utilizing Restaurant Menus and Other Information

On the other side, Perklist offers an AI Assistant that’s all about empowering the restaurant. This tool is a chatbot that a business can add to its own website and gives more control to the restaurant in the menu and other information it uses for its interactions with customers.

To set it up, you simply upload your own official menu, product list, or other business information. The AI assistant then uses this exact information—and only this information—to answer customer questions. A restaurant can also add custom details about their policies, FAQs, and hours. This means that a customer’s question about a specific menu item will be answered with the restaurant’s own description, not with an interpretation from an online review. Perklist puts the business directly in the driver’s seat, ensuring the message is always accurate and on-brand, and makes it easy to update and keep the information accurate and aligned with the business goals.