You’re a small business owner. You shouldn’t have to be a tech whiz. Forget all the training hassles. Forget the painful user manuals. There’s no reason for you to waste your time and money on waitlist management software that’s anything less than plug and play.

Here are seven easy ways to figure out if the tool you’re eyeing is more trouble than it’s worth.

You can’t buy it without talking to a sales person.

If a product is straightforward and user-friendly, it sells itself. You should be able to watch a quick video, then just jump in and start using the product. When a demo from a slick sales rep is required, it’s not the simple solution you’re looking for. Remember: You want to buy the product, not the pitch.

The pricing comes with more fine print than a cell phone contract.

Start-up fees, 24/7 support fees, usage surcharges, complicated pricing tiers, contracts that lock you in for a certain amount of time—these are sales tactics companies use to hook you with a low upfront price and milk you down the line.  Your bill should be simple to understand.  It should be predictable and not change from month to month.  And most importantly, there shouldn’t be any surprises.

Or, even worse, there is no pricing.

One reason a tech company would make you inquire to discover the price of its software is that it knows a salesperson is more likely to get your credit card number than the product itself.  Another reason is to figure out how much money you can afford or are willing to pay so they can extract more money from you.  Throwing out a high list price (that isn’t actually listed anywhere public for fear of scaring people away), and playing the discount game to make you feel like you are getting a bargain is a common sales tactic with complicated software.

There’s a training program, and you probably have to pay for it.

You don’t train someone to use a simple product, you just use it.  Look at great technology companies like Google, Amazon, and Uber as a few of many examples where simpler solutions are less expensive…  The more complex and detailed software is, the more time you need to spend learning it, training your employees on it, and retraining your employees on it when there’s an update. Plus, there’s an increased likelihood of mistakes and complaints. You should get help when you need it, not need to get help just to be able to use a service because it is complicated.

Installation requires you to do 37 other things

A good solution doesn’t require multiple trips to electronic stores. A simple solution doesn’t keep telling you to download more programs to make it work correctly. A good, simple solution is the one that fixes your problem now, without a tacked-on to-do list.

Your customers need to download it, too, in order for you to use it.

Software shouldn’t just be easy foryou to use; it should also be a no-brainer for your clientele. When you add another barrier to use, whether it’s downloading an app or creating a unique login, you’re making customer service harder on yourself.  Everyone has a phone that receives text messages and calls.  They shouldn’t need to install an app.  And most won’t go through the extra effort so you are limiting the number of people than can receive better service with a simpler solution.

Figuring out which button does what feels like decoding your car’s dashboard icons.

When business is busy, you can’t afford to waste time fumbling with your software’s interface to access a certain feature. The line stretches out the door, the customers’ toes start to tap, and the person you’re trying to serve thinks you look like a doofus. And that is not how you want your next Yelp review to read. You should be able to know what every single button does instantly, not after countless seconds of deliberation.  And you shouldn’t have to navigate through all sorts of options and secondary information when greeting a customer.  Eyes on the customer, not the iPad.

Listen: We get it ‘cause we’ve been there.

That’s why we took simple and traditional tools —paper waitlists, reservation books, and grease-board floor plans—and transformed them into one intuitive app that you can download now and use now. Find it in the App Store and Google Play Store, or sign up at www.waitlist.me.

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.

Peanuts and Crackerjacks are just scratching the savory surface of food and beverage offerings available at ballparks this summer.

With everything from craft beer and swanky cocktail bars to gourmet hot dogs and full-service restaurants, baseball stadiums are redefining what it means to take in a ballgame with family and friends. Fans don’t have to splurge on box seats for a VIP experience—and with Waitlist Me on tap at your hostess stand, you can treat every guest to a top-notch experience, guaranteed.

Here’s how a waitlist and reservation app can help you hit this summer out of the park.

Let customers shop, wander, and snap selfies while they wait

Your diners have better things to do than to tap their toes outside your restaurant or give your host the ol’ stink-eye. With our signature Text Notification feature, Waitlist Me sets them free. They can stroll through the concourse, take pictures with players, try on new snap-backs—it’s all fair game. When they hit the top of your list, you can let them know with the push of a button. How’s that for easy?

Attract new diners despite long lines

Because our app lets you alert guests by text when it’s their turn to take a seat, there’s no reason for them to cool their heels in the 10 feet waiting area surrounding your restaurant’s entrance. While your waitlist grows, the line outside your door doesn’t have to. That means new customers can hop on your list without being deterred by other diners.

Allow guests to hop in line from their seats

Whether their stomachs are growling before the first pitch or they get the munchies at the bottom of the fifth, Waitlist Me’s Add Yourself feature lets diners join your waitlist from wherever they are, whenever they want. Thanks to our app, there’s no need to for customers to beat the crowd. They can eat on their own time, without missing a single play.

Ditch constant ETA questions

When’s the table going to be ready? Is it our turn yet? Where are we on the list? We don’t have to ask if you’re tired of these questions. We know you were done with ‘em a couple seasons ago! That’s why we built a Public Waitlist feature—so that guests can check their spot in line straight from their smartphones or from a handy monitor or TV display you can set up in a snap. Phew!

Eliminate clutter and confusion at your hostess stand

Trash your mess of sticky notes and dog-eared memo books and say buh-bye to the grease pen. Waitlist Me is an intuitive, easy-to-use solution to losing reservations and keeping track of your waitlisted parties. Our app is designed to give your front-of-house staff the information and tools they need to manage your guests’ dining experience with just one glance.

It is probably not a surprise that Valentine’s Day is one of the busiest days of the year for restaurants. According to the Statistic Brain Research Institute, Valentine’s spending tops 13 billion dollars, and of the people that celebrate the holiday, more than a third of them head out to restaurants. When you’re making the special preparations to set the right ambiance for your restaurant, don’t forget about the experience your customers will have before they make it to their tables. For those guests who didn’t call ahead to make a reservation, take the pain out of waiting with Waitlist Me.

Customers are happier when they can check their place in line and have the freedom to leave the hostess area, which translates into less walkaways and higher customer satisfaction. Waitlist Me can also speed up table turns so you can seat more people each day. So you win on both sides, being better able to manage the surge in visitors on Valentine’s Day and offering superior customer service in the process.

In search of something romantic, many guests will try someplace new on Valentine’s Day instead of their regular hangouts. Make a great first impression that will keep these first timers coming back. Let Waitlist Me help you today.

We are happy to announce that our popular table and resource management features are now available for the online version of Waitlist Me that can be accessed on computer and tablet browsers.  Previously the resource management features were only available in our iPad and Android apps.

Whether you assign customers to tables, staff, or other resources, Waitlist Me resource management features help you make smart decisions faster and leads to better overall customer service.  Here is an example of how a salon might track which of their employees are available and who would be coming available soon.

It is simple to see availability with the color of the status, and there is a count of minutes for how long they have been with a customer.  Notes and customer names give more context to how customers are being served at any given time.  Estimate times of customers waiting or with upcoming appointments with specific people or resources will also display to help know when to be ready for the next customer.

Customers can be moved between resources if needed, and when a customer is done they can be easily cleared.   Assignments are integrated with the waitlist so that when a customer that has been assigned a resource is checked off the waitlist, that resource will automatically switch to taken in the assignment view. If a customer was using that resource it will switch them with the new customer without any additional steps.

Customers can be assigned to one or more resources upon arrival or while waiting. When choosing assignments, available resources will show with a green status. Resources that are already assigned will have a red status and show the number of minutes they have been occupied with the current customer.

If a customer is already assigned to a resource from the waitlist or as a reservation, the estimated serving time for that customer will show along with any notes that were added. Businesses that serve groups of customers can also define resource sizes and view those sizes in the status areas. For example a restaurant hostess seating a party could scan for open table sizes that would seat six or for smaller tables that could be combined.

The more you use Waitlist Me to manage assignments, the more data you will have on how well you are managing your resources, and there are a number of new downloadable reports that can be run in the Analytics section of the Waitlist Me site. Look for trends over time with the Assignment Overview, do deeper analysis with the more detailed data in the Assignment Logs, and see results split out by assignments and sizes in other reports.