Does the way you organise your tables help waiting staff operate with maximum efficiency, or have you unwittingly created blind spots that leave customers wondering if their drinks order will ever arrive?
At getWaiter!, we know that great service comes from great staff. But we also know that the way you set up your venue can have a huge impact on how they perform. And of course, the shorter the waiting time, the happier the customer, the more likely the second service.
Old news? Think you’ve already planned your layout to perfection? Not necessarily. We’ve been carrying out detailed time trials at a number of busy premises in recent months, using getWaiter! to track how quickly staff respond to diners using our app to call for service. And it’s revealed some very interesting insights.
There can be huge differences in how quickly diners are served depending on where they sit. In our trials, customers at some tables only waited an average of ten seconds before a member of staff reached them. But for others, the wait was as long as 12 minutes.
So which tables were going unnoticed? The ones outside the main building under the awning? The ones tucked away in the far corner?
Yes and no. Actually some of the longest times were focused on the centre of the restaurant. Certainly not what you’d expect. One possible explanation is that waiting staff are naturally good at keeping an extra eye on the hard-to-reach places. But in doing so, they may actually be neglecting what would normally be seen as prominent positions.
This is just one example of how getWaiter! gives you get access to a wealth of incredibly useful data that simply hasn’t been available before. The app could tell you that in the last week, the average waiting time for table 12 is consistently longer than the rest, and you can do something about it. Whereas in the past it’s been down to busy staff remembering where the bottlenecks were, now you have solid data to work from.
The results also showed that some of the quickest-served tables were on the main thoroughfares of the restaurant, which makes sense, as customers seated there have the most chance of grabbing a waiter on their way past. But not every table on these main routes did so well, even though they were just as well-positioned. Which highlights another benefit of working from real data: sometimes the most revealing pattern is when there’s no pattern at all.
On those occasions where there seems no logical reason for slow service, you may never have spotted it without the data. With getWaiter!, you don’t always need to know why there’s a delay, you just need to know it’s there so you can fix it. getWaiter! Gives you complete oversight of your operation, so you can fine-tune it for maximum performance.
And what’s more, the app actually levels the playing field. Even if your venue is blighted by blind spots that no amount of table reorganisation is going to solve, you can still offer the same excellent service normally only achieved by those establishments with the perfect set-up. getWaiter! means your team will never miss a diner’s call, even if there’s a brick wall or two floors between them.
getWaiter! is free for establishments to use the service and free for customers to download too. The app is available for both iOS and Android and can be downloaded from http://www.getwaiter.com/consumer/download
It’s really easy for restaurants, bars and cafes to set up an account. You can find out more here.
