For restaurants that are looking for an attractive, secure display for their devices, we have teamed with ArmorActive to provide a hardware solution. ArmorActive’s iPad kiosks are designed to secure and protect the devices, while complimenting both the sleek look of the iPad and NoshList’s stunning user-interface.
ArmorActive, located in Utah’s “Silicon Slopes”, offers a number of attractive hardware interfaces for running applications such as NoshList, and is the fastest growing iPad kiosk design, engineering & manufacturing company in the world.
With iPad security provided by ArmorActive and the NoshList waitlist app, restaurants now have everything they need to make managing their wait lists easier and more secure than ever before.
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.
Building on our launch of table section management features a few months ago, we have added some new features to make it even easier to know where to seat the next customer. Labeled mode displays valuable activity metrics, section notes help you track servers covering each section, and additional waitlist integration makes it faster to do more from the table management screen. Here is a video that highlights some of these new features and shows more on how to set up your section and layout management strategies:
Labeled mode
In “Labeled” mode, you’ll also see additional details about each section. The “Open” metric shows the number of available tables as well as the total available seats at those tables. The “Filled” metric shows the percentage of seats occupied in a section along with the counts of the occupied and total seats. These key stats help make smarter decisions faster. For instance, when a group comes in that’s too big for one table, you can instantly see which sections have enough empty tables, with enough empty seats, to accommodate them. And you can also see how many of the seats in each section are filled, and ensure that each server gets their fair share of the work, not just their fair share of the tables. These metrics are also visible in the “Size” and “Status” sorts for seeing breakdowns of availability by table size or overall status.
Section Notes
You can add comments to each section—for instance, to identify who’s working where, or to leave a reminder about a special event. Just tap “Add Notes,” fill in your remarks, and then tap “Save.” Instead of having to set up complicated server scheduling or other section tracking processes, the notes feature lets you make updates faster and more naturally. It’s as easy as the common practice of writing server names on a laminated floor plan, but with all the advantages that our app has to offer for seeing real-time data, easily knowing where to seat the next customer, syncing information across devices, and more.
More Waitlist Integration
If you like working within the table management view of the app, it is nice to be able to assign customers from the waitlist, notify them their table is ready, and seat them at the table without having to switch back to the waitlist view. Now you can.
From the action bar, when you tap on add, you can choose someone who’s already on your waiting list, and serve them at that table, right now. If the table is already occupied, this removes the old party from the waitlist, and seats the new one, with one tap.
Or, if you’re not ready to seat them yet, you can just “assign” them to use that table next. If the new customer has stepped away, you can even make the assignment and also send them an SMS text message, asking them to come back. When they’re ready to take their seats, just tap on the table, and then tap “Next.”
You can also add a new customer by tapping a table. Just fill in their name, phone number, and other details. The table has already been selected, so you can go ahead and seat the customer right now, or add them to your waitlist, or even make a reservation, all in one place.
Quick Seating
When you aren’t crowded you probably seat customers at tables without taking their name. You can still track that the table is occupied and for how long by using the status button in the action bar. This makes it easy to keep track of your availability without having to create a customer for each table. You may want to start tracking your table availability at a certain time, like before it gets busy, and you can mark all your tables that are currently occupied all at once. Just press and hold on one table to use the multi-select feature, then tap on all the tables that are occupied, and then tap the status button to make them occupied.
Waitlist Me was one of the first integration partners for Google’s integrated waitlist features, and these features continue to be popular with Waitlist Me customers and their guests. Businesses using Waitlist Me can easily turn on these features with the press of a button to allow their customers to join their waitlist right from Google.
Google released a couple new settings for further improving the guest experience, and these are now available for Waitlist Me users in the “Add From Google” area of the settings when logged into the Waitlist Me website.
Waitlist Policy – Often businesses want to set the right expectations for what to expect after joining the waitlist from Google or give some simple instructions about how to use the feature. For example, they may want to let people know not to use the feature to make reservations or let them know to look for a confirmation after joining. Now there is a setting that can be used to display some simple text to customers when they join the waitlist from Google.
Max party size – The ability to set a maximum party size has been a feature to help avoid cases where a business might not be able to accommodate a larger party or set the right expectations. Previously though the customer wouldn’t be given any additional instructions on what to do in those cases. Now there is a setting where businesses can display a message to give them a call for party sizes over the maximum.
When using the Add Yourself features, whether through Kiosk Mode or the Web Widget, there are several ways you can display an estimated wait to customers. Simply navigate to the Settings > Add Yourself > Main View. Here you can select the wait time that fits your business best.
People and Groups – Show the number of parties and the total number of people on the list.
People – Show the number of people on the list.
Minutes By Group – Display an estimated time by multiplying the number of parties by a number of minutes you specify. For example, selecting 5 minutes will multiply the number of groups on the list by 5, and present that result as the estimated wait.
Minutes By People – Display an estimated time by multiplying the total number of people on the list by a number of minutes you specify.
Last Estimated Time – Report the last estimate given by your staff.
List View – Show the public view of the waitlist, so people can see where they are in line.
Hide – No estimates, just go straight to the Add Yourself part.
For restaurants that are looking for an attractive, secure display for their devices, we have teamed with ArmorActive to provide a hardware solution. ArmorActive’s iPad kiosks are designed to secure and protect the devices, while complimenting both the sleek look of the iPad and NoshList’s stunning user-interface.
