Running a successful restaurant means juggling a lot of moving parts, and managing the dining room floor is often one of the most challenging. Double-bookings, awkward overlaps, and unpredictable table turnover can quickly turn a great service into a stressful one.

Enter Duration Rules—a smart feature within Advanced Scheduling Rules designed to automate and optimize your table management.

Here is a breakdown of what Duration Rules are, how they work, and how they help your business.

What Are Duration Rules?

At their core, Duration Rules allow businesses to automatically control exactly how long a table is reserved based on the size of the party or the time of day.

Working seamlessly with your Table Management and Capacity Utilization tools, these rules calculate availability and assign tables automatically. This means your system can make reliable, split-second decisions during customer self-scheduling without any manual math or intervention from your staff.

The Magic Behind the Scenes: How They Work

When a customer attempts to book a table through your self-scheduling portal, the system follows a precise, automated logic:

1. Identifies the party size: The system notes how many guests are arriving.
2. Applies the rule: It looks at your predefined settings to find the correct duration for that party size.
3. Blocks the table: The specific table is reserved for that exact calculated time limit.
4. Checks availability: It instantly ensures no other reservations can overlap with this block.
5. Updates the customer: If no suitable table is available for the full duration of their requested time, that time slot is hidden or marked unavailable to prevent double-booking.

Customizing for the Rush: Time-Based Duration Rules

Not all service periods are created equal. Customers might want a quick bite during their lunch hour, but prefer to linger over a multi-course meal at dinner. Duration Rules can be customized to reflect these different dining habits.

By creating separate rules and applying them to specific blocks in your Business Hours settings, you can maximize efficiency.

Why Duration Rules Matter

By implementing Duration Rules, you ensure that the availability your customers see online perfectly matches the real capacity of your dining room, even during the Friday night rush.

The immediate benefits for your business include:

• Preventing double bookings: No more apologizing for a table not being ready.
• Reflecting realistic dining times: Tailoring your turnover expectations to the actual time of day.
• Improving the guest experience: Customers are seated promptly, and dining rooms feel well-managed.
• Reducing staff workload: Hosts can focus on greeting guests rather than playing calendar tetris.
• Enabling reliable self-scheduling: You can trust the system to run on autopilot.

Waitlist Me Platinum subscriptions include options to completely customize how the web widget and kiosk look. You would need some web development skills to modify the HTML, CSS, and Javascript like you would for a web page.

To get started, log in to www.waitlist.me and navigate to Account > Settings > Add Yourself. Scroll to the bottom and select Edit to make changes to either the web widget or the kiosk. If you are using both, you can copy changes from one to the other after you’re done setting it up. Or you can edit them independently to make them look and function differently. Leave it toggled to Off until you’re ready to debut your new widget.

You can load one of our default templates to get you started and make changes from there. There are three main steps that can be customized:

Main View – Customize the screen customers start on to greet them with messaging and imagery that fits your brand.

Input View – Decide the important information fields to include and the instructions you provide to customers. There are separate views for Joining the Waitlist and Making Reservations/Appointments depending on what options you allow.

Confirmation View – Finish with your own thank you or welcome message and imagery.

Refer to this documentation for the technical instructions to fully customize your widget.

When a customer who is on the waitlist or has a reservation sends you a text, you are able to see their text reply.  This helps you know when a customer decided not to come so you can remove them from the list, if they are on their way so you can hold their table, or if they have something else to ask or tell you.  With a Pro subscription, you can send open text replies to customer texts for more flexible communications.

Another Pro feature we have recently added is the option to enable an audio alert or visual highlighting when customers send you text messages.  Normally you would see a note in the customer row when they send you a text, and the full details of texts sent and received when tapping on the customer row.  The new alert features make it easier to know when a customer replies and which customer replied by playing a sound and flashing the area of the notes to attract your attention to the right spot to look.

Here’s how to set these up. If you use Waitlist Me in a computer browser, make sure you’re using the new version (there’s an option at the top of the waitlist to switch to the new version). Then on the top right of the main waitlist page click on the Settings gear icon  and go to Custom Behaviors > Receiving Texts. Here you can turn on options to play a sound and/or highlight the section of the waitlist that has the text response alert for a customer. These settings will apply to any devices using the web version.

In the Waitlist Me apps, the Custom Behavior settings are device-dependent, so you can choose whether to have them on or off for each different tablet or phone you’re using. In the app, go to the gear icon > Customization > Custom Behaviors > Receiving Texts to edit these options. Once turned on, you would hear a chime and see the highlighted area when you have the app open on your device.

COVID-19 hit the United States hard in March and shut down many businesses. Along with closures came new safety regulations for restaurants, for those that were able to stay open at all. When dining rooms and patios were forced to close, many restaurants moved to take-out only and created elaborate plans to ensure the safety of customers and staff. As cities and states have begun to slowly allow businesses to reopen, restaurants have been faced with a multitude of new regulations and guidelines for ensuring the safety of their operations.

What To Think About Before Re-Opening:

There are quite a few factors to consider when starting to re-open restaurants. Building trust is key. Although most people are itching to return to their normal life, many also want to make sure that places they go are upholding strict guidelines and rules to ensure the safety of guests, employees, and families. A few ways to build this trust and keep customers and happy and coming back to your restaurant:

    –   Maintain distancing guidelines between guests and staff.

    –   Increase the amount of cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting that is done on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

    –   Update your illness policy to include fever and respiratory symptoms and ensure that sick people are staying home.

    –   Have staff wear masks when possible.

    –   Ensure that existing and new employees are trained on proper hygiene, health policies, and guidelines for cleaning and disinfecting.

    –   Follow recommendations from the CDC as well as local and national public health authorities.

This might seem like a lot to implement, and it might take a bit of time to adjust, but there are apps, such as Waitlist Me, that can help with some of these challenges

Keeping Crowd Sizes Down with Waitlist Me

Another important factor to a smooth re-opening is ensuring that there are rules in place to limit the crowd sizes in the restaurant. Currently, no one wants to eat with someone hovering next to their table waiting for a seat, nor do people want to be stuck in a crowded waiting area. Waitlist Me can help in a couple ways.

Guests can put their name in with the hostesses and then freely wait elsewhere to be notified of a table opening via text. When a guest is added to the waitlist, they will receive a confirmation text message that will include a link to the restaurant’s public waitlist, allowing them to see where they are in line. They will also receive a text message when their table is ready. This type of consistency not only improves the waiting experience, but also helps with social distancing during the Coronavirus Era. Your customers can wait where they like, with more room to breathe and relax, without fear of missing out on a table.

Allowing Remote Check In

Waitlist Me also offers Self Check In as an option for guests to check wait times and add themselves to the waitlist. This feature can be enabled for Google as well as integrated into a website with the Waitlist Me Widget. Customers can also send reservation requests via the widget, cutting down on the need for phone calls to take reservations, and saving your staff time.

Creating New Floor Plans with Waitlist Me

Maintaining social distancing guidelines is very important to guests and employees. States are implementing rules and regulations that uphold these guidelines, such as limiting dining rooms to 50% capacity or keeping tables at least 6 ft. apart. With these new challenges, it can help to have a flexible way to update and manage floorplans. Waitlist Me lets you easily adjust your available tables to your capacity. The floorplan view can also help visualize a new plan prior to moving the tables to ensure the set up makes sense and allows for proper distancing.

These are a few of the ways Waitlist Me can help, and more can be found on our website.

Byline: Brittany Taylor

If you’re American, you may recognize the word “queue” from your Netflix app. If you’re British, you can’t think why anyone would use the word “line” when “queue” is the obvious choice. If you’re Canadian, you’re more likely to think in terms of waiting in line, but probably wouldn’t worry too much if told told to “queue up.” Whether you think in terms of a waitlist or queue management system, Waitlist Me can help.

What’s behind the way we wait? Let’s take a look…

Where the idea of “lining up” came from

Despite the eternity you waited in traffic this morning, the idea of forming an orderly line hasn’t been around forever. It didn’t become a popular convention until after the turn of the 19^th century. That was when the industrial revolution began to concentrate large populations in towns.

As more and more people moved into cities, the way they bought things changed. Instead of markets, individuals frequented shops. What else changed? The way people worked. As factories, mines, and, later, offices became the norm, workers had to get through the door—literally—and lines became a daily occurrence.

What’s up, Britain?

Across the United Kingdom, the queue reigns supreme. Like its penchant for afternoon tea, though, queueing is an imported custom. The word itself is French for a braid or plait, and it’s derived from a Latin word that means “tail.” By the early 19^th century, it had come to mean a line of people, but it wasn’t until World War II that the idea of the queue became part of the British identity.

As Great Britain entered the war, its government talked up the notion of citizens doing their duty and taking turns. Queueing became a symbol of that, “of decency, fair play, and democracy,” reports another British institution, the BBC. After the war, opposition politicians flipped that idea on its head. Queueing became a sign of societal problems and government inefficiencies. Public resentment grew and the occasional queue-related fisticuffs ensued.

Today, Brits are still ardent queuers, and while they’re proud of their reputation for polite queueing, they’re not very happy about the waiting itself. For many, it’s a stressful experience focused on doing one’s duty and ensuring everyone else does, too.

America’s love-hate relationship with waitlists

Lines, like most things before the Internet Age, came to America a little late. Once they arrived, though, they took hold. Many moments in U.S. history come with their own lines, from the bread lines of the Great Depression to gas lines during the oil crisis.

The American approach to lines is pretty similar to America’s approach to life. On one hand, there’s egalitarianism. This is the United States, after all, the land of plenty and equal opportunity! There’s enough for everyone, and if you wait for your turn, you’ll get what you want. On the other hand, there’s capitalism. In America, it’s a race to the top. We’re always working for more, and sometimes there isn’t enough to go around.

This dual approach is why Americans are both happy to wait their turn and anxious about the whole waiting-in-line experience. Americans want to be good citizens, but they also want what they want, and if getting it is in question, they start stressing out about what they can do better to make their goals a reality. Could I choose a shorter line? Can I cut? Can I bribe the hostess?

It’s a competitive experience that’s uniquely American, but it also creates a build-up of unnecessary stress. Folks in the U.S. wait in line an average of 37 billion hours each year. That’s a lot of anxiety!

Then, there’s Canada, the chillest line-waiter of them all

The Great White North is all about maple leaves, Mounties, and, yes, waitlists. While using the word “queue” won’t raise many eyebrows, Canada falls firmly on the “we wait in lines” side of the debate.

Canada takes its lines—or lineups, as they prefer to call them—seriously. Our favorite example: International students at Canadian universities are often required to take etiquette classes during orientation. Mastering the lineup is on the syllabus right after learning how to say “hello.”

True to form (and its reputation as the global nice guy), Canada’s relationship with lines is based in its dedication to upholding polite society. Along with apologies and punctuality, the omnipresent lineup is an unspoken agreement that every Canadian, can mind their manners, relax while they wait, and still get what they want.

Waitlist Me makes queues, waitlists, and lineups better across the globe

Our goal is to make your customers’ waiting experience better. Happier customers lead to better bottom lines—and that’s exactly what we want for your business. Our app is now available in more than 60 countries, so wherever you are and whatever you do, we’re here to help.