How a Waiter Paging System Could Benefit Your Restaurant

Does hearing a guest’s name called out in your restaurant make you cringe? It’s often unavoidable that some guests have to wait a while to reserve a table, especially during peak hours. What is avoidable is the need to call out their names when a table opens up. Not only does this interfere with other guest’s experiences, but it also makes the guests themselves uncomfortable.

Modern paging systems provide a convenient communication channel within your restaurant to improve communication and service delivery.

Apart from avoiding the discomfort of calling guests over a megaphone, waiter-paging systems come with several benefits we will discuss in this article. Before that, let’s learn a little about waiter paging systems.

What is a Waiter Paging System?

Communication is critical for the restaurant business. Customers have to communicate with waiters to have their orders taken and delivered, while waiters have to communicate customer orders to kitchen staff.

Waiters must juggle multiple duties during their shift, making it easy to lose track of these duties. The result is frustrated customers and reduced revenues.  A waiter paging system is a communication device that helps streamline the daily operations of a restaurant.

Waiter paging systems simplify and streamline communications among hotel staff, allowing them to offer efficient services to their customers.  Chefs can notify waiters as soon as the food is ready while customers can request service by pressing a button. What’s more, you can communicate with guests discretely when their order is ready, or a table is available.

A wireless waiter paging system can come in one of three solutions:

• A wireless calling system allows customers to call for help from waiters. This system also directs waiters by displaying the tables that need service.
• A guest paging system allows waiters to call customers when their orders are ready. These systems come with a coaster pager for customers, which allows them to wait anywhere they would like. The customer receives a notification on the coaster pager when their order is ready. Aidbell’s restaurant pagers have a long-range capability (3000 ft.), meaning that you can notify customers outside your restaurant when a table is free.
• Kitchen to waiter systems facilitates communication between chefs and waiters. The chef can press the wireless keypad to call the relevant waiter once the dish is ready for pickup.

Integrating waiter-paging systems with your restaurant operations is guaranteed to improve staff productivity and customer satisfaction.

Now, let’s look at the benefits of waiter paging systems.

1. Improved Communication and Productivity

Seamless communication is often challenging in restaurant settings. The wait staff has to communicate with the kitchen staff and handle different requests from customers. This need for coordination could easily overwhelm staff resulting in delayed orders, angry customers, and frustrated staff.

However, when using a waiter pager system, wait staff can learn when the chef has finished making an order or when a customer needs service.

When using a wireless waiter paging system, your staff can carry their devices with them and be notified each time they should pick an order or when customers want to order.

Such convenience not only improves staff communication but also enhances the satisfaction customers derive from your services.

2. Improved Customer Satisfaction

Waiter paging systems are not only effective at enhancing staff productivity; they contribute to a better customer experience. When customers dine out, their motivation is to enjoy the ambiance, good food, and great service.

Waiter paging systems bring them the ultimate experience as it eliminates the need to raising hands, ringing bells, or calling out across the restaurant when they need a waiter. Instead, they can conveniently press the button on the paging system and a waiter is ready to serve them.

This allows customers to relax and enjoy their dining experience knowing that they can call for help immediately when they need it. Customers can relax outside the restaurant, if they did not find a table, with the confidence that they will be notified as soon as a table becomes available.  

Waiter paging systems also heighten the dining experience by delivering fresh food as soon as the chef completes the order. This eliminates the issues that arise with customers getting cold food or delays in service.

Waiters are also more calm and relaxed instead of rushing around the restaurant, taking orders, and forgetting others.

Think of a restaurant without a paging system; customers have to wave for the waiter’s attention, even worse, have to call out for them when they need service. This can be frustrating for customers and waiters and dampen the dining experience.

Restaurant pagers, however, allow discrete communication between staff and customers. Customers can press a button and the waiter receives a notification that they need to be served. Kitchen staff can also press a button and notify waiters that an order is ready.

Eliminating the background noise in your restaurant provides a relaxing environment for your customers to enjoy their meals and unwind.

3. Improved Customer Retention

Good food is a part of the great dining experience. But even better than great food is the quality of service that customers get. When customers receive great service, they will keep coming back to enjoy the same service, which builds customer loyalty.

Waiter paging systems also help as a queue management system. When a customer comes in when you do not have open tables, they can reserve a table and receive a wireless pager that will notify them as soon as the table is free.

When customers are confident that you will notify them as soon a table is available, they are likely to keep coming back to your restaurant and recommend it to others. Since these pagers have a long-range capacity, customers do not have to wait around for half an hour for a table to become free.

4. Better Profits

Before embracing restaurant pager systems, you want to know whether they will increase your bottom line. Fortunately, one of the benefits of waiter paging systems is the increased returns they bring.

Waiter paging systems help restaurants increase their productivity. Since your wait staff spends less time in the kitchen waiting for orders, they can spend more time with guests serving them and upselling to them.

This improves the quality of service your guests get and improves customer satisfaction and retention. When you retain more customers, you increase your revenue.

By providing pagers to notify customers when a table is available, you reduce the number of customers you lose to your competitors during peak hours. With the pager, you give customers that alternative to waiting elsewhere as a table opens up.

Since these pagers also improve your customer service, it also increases the number of positive reviews that customers leave about your restaurant. The more positively customers view your restaurant, the more customers and revenue you attract.

Final Word

Instant communication with staff and customers is critical in the restaurant business. Streamlining your communication systems improves staff efficiency while improving customer retention and satisfaction.

Therefore, integrating wireless waiter paging systems should be a priority if you are looking to increase your profits and customer satisfaction.

If you are looking to get started with waiter paging systems, Aidbell offers reliable restaurant paging systems that will suit your needs. Contact us today.