NoshList was excited to return to this year’s National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show (NRA) in Chicago from May 17-20, marking the company’s third year as an NRA exhibitor. There are a number of trends that are changing the way restaurants manage their businesses better with technology, and NoshList has been at the forefront of these innovations.

Since last year’s event, NoshList has tripled the number of people seated through the NoshList waitlist app. The NoshList wait list app closed out 2013 with more than 22 million diners seated across 4,000 restaurants. In the first quarter of this year, NoshList seated another 10 million diners, as growth continues to accelerate. We also were one of the first apps to integrate with the award-winning Clover POS device.

NoshList got a chance to show off several design improvements and new features in its new iOS 7 and Android apps, and gave a special preview of its new reservations feature for the first time at NRA. Adding reservations to the NoshList app is another way the company is building the simple and intuitive tools that restaurants need to improve their guest experience and operational efficiencies. The reservations feature will be live in the App Store and Play Store within a few weeks.

We had a great time at the event, spoke to a lot of interesting potential customers and technology partners, and were thrilled to have a chance to be interviewed by Turn & Burn on the NRA Media Stage.

We also had a couple Armor Active stands, which work great with NoshList. Here is a blog post on how they looked.

Building on the set of resource management features we rolled out a couple months ago, we have added more flexibility for creating and tracking custom resource statuses. These statuses can be used to visually highlight different stages of your occupied resources in different colors to help make assignment decisions faster and easier.

Here is a new video on resource management, including the new custom statuses:

For example, say you are managing restaurant tables and using Waitlist Me to view what tables are available or occupied. You can sort tables by the times they have been occupied for a better sense of which ones will become available first. Now with custom statuses you could improve on those estimates even more by changing the states of tables that are waiting for their bill or being cleaned. Marking tables with customers waiting for their checks as “billing” can give your bus boys a heads up on which tables would need cleaning soon. Similarly, you can change the status of tables to “cleaning” when they are being cleared and prepped. Using more detailed statuses can help your staff at the front of the house know what tables will be available soon, which means they can quote better wait time estimates and seat customers faster. This means more revenue for the restaurant through more table turns and improved customer satisfaction.

This is just one example of how it might work in a restaurant, but the flexibility of the naming and usage of statuses means they can be tailored to different processes in different businesses.

To change a status in Waitlist Me, all you have to do is press on the resource and an action bar will appear at the bottom of the screen. This area shows information on customers currently occupying and waiting for the resource, and has actions for moving and clearing customers. Pressing on the status on the left will bring up a list of statuses, and selecting one will change the status and color of the resource. In the list view, just tap on the status color to change it.

Note that when you choose a custom status you can see both the total time a resource has been occupied as well as the time spent in the current status, which is shown in parenthesis. This makes it easy to see total visit times and times in specific statuses at a glance, so you can tell if a certain stage is causing more delays than others and how that might be affecting total wait times.

Accompanying the custom statuses are a couple of new sorting options in the Grid view, where you can view your resources grouped by Status. Select “Status the ABC” to have all the statuses grouped together and then ordered alphabetically by the resource name or “Status then Time” to have them ordered by the length of time they have been in that particular status.

To customize your statuses, go to your Settings and then press on “Manage Resources” and then again on the “Statuses” in the upper right. In addition to the default “available” (green) and “occupied” (red) statuses, you can add four of your own statuses. Just add the names and move the sliders on the right to turn them on or off. Statuses will show alphabetically in the options when you select them, so you can set the naming accordingly. The green and red statuses for available and occupied resources are always required, and custom statuses are treated as states of an occupied resource.

When your time is money, how you manage that time makes a difference. For many CEOs and executives, an ace admin team or executive assistant manages the schedule with aplomb. But regardless of how good your support staff is, there are always ways to make your office run more efficiently. Waitlist Me is one of those ways.

Waitlist Me is a waitlist management app that ensures everyone who needs face-time with the boss gets it, whether they need a 30-minute meeting or 60 seconds for a signature. Here are five ways Waitlist Me can transform your office.

Squeeze in meetings between appointments

Traditional calendars can make it difficult to spot and best utilize smaller blocks of open time. Waitlist Me makes it easy—and we let you color code everything according to, well, whatever you want. Supply each department with a color, or each type of appointment, and create the schedule that makes sense for you.

Set up office hours for drop-ins with staff

An open-door policy—or an occasional open-door policy—can do wonders for company culture, but it can also turn your hallways into long lines of employees who want CEO input. Waitlist Me helps create order by letting employees stay at their desks until go-time. Our text alert feature lets them know exactly when to knock on your door.

Give CEOs more control over who to see when

First come, first serve? That’s up to you. Waitlist Me lets you see key information at a glance on all the people needing your attention.  If you spot something urgent further down the list, it is a cinch to take that one first by sending a quick text to that person.  Or you may select items to clear off your list based on how much time you have available, whether you can cover an item in another meeting, how often you already see a particular person, or whatever you like.

Let employees book themselves into free time

Most assistants have far more on their docket than fielding requests for 5 minutes of your time. Take those calls off their plates by letting employees request quick appointments themselves. Waitlist Me’s Add Yourself feature lets them do just that—and you (or your admin) can quickly add them to your waitlist without turning the request into a full-blown conversation.

Keep employees from losing work-time waiting around

Nobody wants to see a parade of toe-tapping employees outside their office door. Nix it starting now thanks to our public waitlist feature. Staffers can check their place in line right from their work stations, which means they can increase their productivity without sacrificing the opportunity to get the input they need from you.

Did you know you can add a button to your Facebook page to take reservations or appointments? Allowing customers to book directly from social media is easy, and a great way to increase bookings.

Start by logging into your Waitlist Me account and copying the unique link for your hosted Web Widget. You can find this at www.waitlist.me > Account > Settings > Add Yourself. The link will be at the top of the page.

Next, go to your business’s Facebook page. Choose the Add a Button option on the right.

Choose Book with you, and then Book Now.

Select the Link to Website option, enter your Waitlist Me link in the pop up, press Save and then Finish. That’s it! You now have your very own reservation (or appointment) button on Facebook.

The hunt for must-have Valentine’s Day gifts is officially on. Whether you manage a big-name retailer or a small business storefront, a waitlist and reservation app is the 10-minute tech upgrade you need to keep your stress levels low and your customers’ shopping experience smooth and enjoyable this February 14^th.  Here’s how busy retail outlets are using  some of our app’s top features as Valentine’s Day approaches.

Text notifications

When you’re dealing with intimate purchases like lacy underthings or personal scents, sales associates and shoppers need privacy, not a looming line of other customers looking for assistance. That’s where a waitlist comes into play.

If individual service is a must, a waitlist is a boon no matter what products fill your shelves. Add text notification, and you’ve got a system that will bring calm to your store’s shopping and sales experience and create the one-on-one atmosphere you’re looking for. It’s an easy, unobtrusive way to let shoppers know when it’s their turn. And with Waitlist Me, they’re simple to set up and use, whether you need them once in a while for holiday rushes or sales, or 24/7 to keep up with your foot traffic.

Perfect for…lingerie stores, perfumeries, large retailers, big-ticket department stores, and other outlets where customers want to browse but also appreciate one-on-one assistance

Customer service

No matter the price tag, you want your customers to feel like friends, not another credit card number.

Say hello to two Waitlist Me features that’ll make your customers feel welcome and remembered: notes and wait time tracking. When you add shoppers to your waitlist, you can add notes, like what they’re wearing, what they look like, and what they’re shopping for. These details let sales associates greet them personally.

Tracking the times that you estimated you’d be ready to help a customer next to their actual waits helps you give accurate quotes.  It can be more frustrating for customers to not know how long the wait will be or have to wait longer than they were told.  Waitlist Me helps you overdeliver on their expectations.

Perfect for…boutiques, designer stores, luxury retailers, and other shops that rely on personalized service and a good rapport between sales associates and shoppers

People management

When you’ve got a mixed crowd of traditional rose-buyers and “I want something a little different” custom arrangements, balance is essential. Waitlist Me can help you achieve it.

The app allows you to add each shopper to a waitlist and note what sort of product the shopper is looking for. As a staff member specializing in each area becomes free, they can take on customers according to the type of bouquet they’re looking to give. Splitting the workload will maximize your resources—and prevent a bottleneck thanks to that one indecisive customer who just isn’t sure what he wants.

Perfect for…candy stores, flower shops, wine stores, and business whose customer base is often split between people who know exactly what they want and those who need more personal attention

Integrated appointments

Got the heart-shaped boxes stacked and ready to go? Filled your refrigerators with flowers by the dozen? Great! Now it’s time to focus on creating a stand-out shopping experience.

To nix a long line and take advantage of lulls, try taking phone orders in addition to walk-ins. Waitlist Me lets you manage advance orders (think of them as reservations with pick-up times) alongside walk-ins, which you can add to a waitlist when business picks up. The app keeps both neatly organized and accessible. That means you can focus on the people you’re serving, not on finding random bits of paper you scribbled an order on three days ago.

Perfect for…chocolatiers, flower shops, and businesses who offer call-in orders for quick pick-up in addition to walk-ins