Blog Posting #5

Hospitality Technology Magazine
October 2007
Going Mobile
By George Koroneos, Contributing Editor

"From guest feedback systems to hostess solutions, restaurants roll out innovative uses for wireless technology"

This is the opening line from this article and I think it sums up everything perfectly. What George Konoreos has to say about the direction of this industry seems to be on target with what many of us would expect. Technology plays a bigger and bigger part everyday in the hospitality industry and this article is another evidence of that fact. The first thing that is talked about is something close to home for all of us who have recently worked in Vita Nova. It explains about "The Informant" by Long Range System's, affectionately known to us as "e-trays". This device is a wireless survey tool. It resembles a traditional credit-card tray except is has a keyboard and a screen that are used to solicit guest comments. In conjunction with these e-trays are small wireless pagers which can be set to alert the manager when certain questions are answered unfavorably. The restaurant using this system has been extremely satisfied, as have those running Vita Nova.

Another cool technology this article talks about are wireless hand-held POS terminals. The restaurant using these devices has had tremendous success. The owner states that even while the head waiter is inputting dinner selections, a second waiter is on their way to the table arriving with the drinks which have been electronically placed table-side yet wireless transmitted into the back of the house. Guests are amazed to see drink orders placed before them before the waiter has even completed taking the order. Turning tables quickly increases ROI and the use of this sort of technology impresses the guest at the same time which helps to insure a positive experience. What is also very impressive is the ability to swipe credit cards at the table as well, again increasing efficiency and giving the guest added peace of mind about identity theft. A similar service being implemented by restaurants today is the ability to send text messages to guests to inform them when their table is ready. The guest can then respond to say we want to be seated immediately, need 10 minutes to get back to the restaurant, or even cancel the table... all with the touch of a number response on their cell phone. Of course if your cell phone is not text enabled a traditional pager is available.

I thought that this article was really pretty interesting. It outlines many of the newest technologies available to those in the hospitality field. I think that these services are a terrific idea. I know that personally I would love to be at a restaurant that utilized such technology. It seems that not only can efficiency and bottom line be increased, but the overall satisfaction of the customer goes up do to the exceptional service that can be provided. What I also thought was very smart (and extremely necessary) was the fact that all of these wireless services can still operate in the case of the internet going down. The only function that would be lost in that instant would be mobility. All of the essential services can still be controlled via the central stations. Also the servers run in redundancy to further insure that if something goes wrong with one of the servers, the other one is there to back everything up and keep the operation running smoothly. I doubt it will be long before nearly all restaurants are implementing some for of the technologies this article discussed. Even Vita Nova is already on top of it with 2 out of 3!