Reservations used to look like tipped-in chairs and restaurants used to assume the table would be filled every night with their usual faces of businessmen and people who like to take up the same table each night.

Of course, throughout the 20^th century, people realized that this was no longer a dependable way to reserve tables nor fill their seats with new people. Restaurants in the 1980’s found that the concept of no-shows was causing big problems, impossibly long reservation lists, and emptier restaurants with an unhappy and lengthy line. Soon though, a new technology would fix their problem.

Enter - the restaurant pager. Restaurant pagers gave a measured and fair tell of who was where in line without the businessman bias or the no-show issue. Especially when restaurants became chains and the entertainment of the night for families and couples was, in fact, going to dinner.

Themed places like The Cheesecake Factory would have people waiting up until an hour and a half for dinner, making it possible to utilize the technology to make better use of the lines and waits. Now, we see restaurants hand out these palm-sized pagers to let its patrons walk around without worrying that they missed their reservation, or their name being called out.

It also allows customers to wait longer than they might ordinarily because they are not just sitting there waiting for the time, but they can also walk around and look at stores, shops, or other means of entertainment to pass the time.

The Invention Itself

The invention of the restaurant pager actually came along long before its utilization in the dining industry. In the 1950’s, physicians created what we know now as the restaurant pager. It took 42 additional years to use it properly in restaurants on a regular basis.

In 1995, the restaurant coaster-style pager was invented, and the wait times and restaurants collectively took an exhale. Originally, the pagers did not buzz, this was added later on as well as some unnecessary and memorably annoying features were also added.

The pager would buzz and make an alarmingly loud noise if you exited the range of the pager, quite literally shouting at you: “You are out of range!” While some of these kinks have been ironed out by time, others have remained, and some older restaurants don’t have a need to upgrade considering the simple technology doesn’t really age out.

Final Thoughts

The restaurant pager is an integral invention to the flow and movement of lines and restaurants and is the reason why we can have long wait lines today. It is a fool-proof way to make sure that the next order received is the next order filled, everyone is happy, everyone gets a seat.

Of course, you’re already familiar with the four-by-four disks that you’re handed nearly every time you decide to go to a busy restaurant with a wait – but how do they work? Often, we do come across items that we use every day, but we still have no idea how they work. However, today, we’re going to look at how a restaurant pager must work in order to let you know when your table is ready.

Typically, we get handed this small little box that gives us the freedom to wander about while we wait for our table. But how does this technology work? In essence, this tiny box is actually just a pager. By definition, a pager is a very simple radio that listens to one station all the time. The radio transmitter broadcasts signals over a very specific frequency so that the pager can pick it up. All of the pagers for the specific network are tuned into the same frequency broadcast from the transmitter.

Each Pager has its own identification sequence known as a CAP (Channel Access Protocol) code, and each pager listens for its individual and unique code. When it hears its code, it alerts the user and, depending on the pager type, will let the user know additional information. There are 5 basic pager types. The Beeper, VoiceTone, Numeric, Alphanumeric, and Two-Way. They all serve different function in the notification type but for the same goal of alerting the user. Most restaurants use the beeper type. These are the ones that buzz in your hand to let you know your table is ready.

The restaurant will have a small paging system to cover the surrounding area, this is called an on-site paging system like a desktop transmitter. This is the device that sends out the signal for the pager is to be listening to for their unique code. The area range can change based on this device, but restaurants typically like to keep the area small anyway so that customers can make it back to the front desk to claim their table relatively quickly from when they receive their alert.

Pagers usually run on rechargeable batteries, hence the fact that you will usually see them stacked up in a tall pile. This is because they all charge together through the contact of the metal of the connective screws at the corners. They charge through conductive metal electricity and form a charging chain.

So, the next time you wait for a table at a restaurant and patiently (or not so patiently) stare at the pager in your hand, think about how much work goes into you knowing that your table is ready for you. You might just have a whole new appreciation for the technology that gives you the freedom to walk around while you wait.

Good customer service is the result of the right attention to strategy, business processes, technology, and people management. This seven-part series focuses on customer service technology and explains the what, why, how, and when of the technology. Let’s start at the beginning: What is customer service technology?

The contact center technology ecosystem for customer service is a nightmare of complexity. At a high level, to serve your customers, you need to:

1. Capture the inquiry, which can come in over the phone, electronically via email, chat, or SMS, and over social channels, like Twitter, Facebook, or an interaction escalated from a discussion forum or a Web or speech self-service session.
2. Route the inquiry to the right customer service agent pool.
3. Create a case for the inquiry that contains its details and associate it with the customer record.
4. Find the answer to the inquiry. This can involve digging through different information sources like knowledge bases, billing systems, and ordering databases.
5. Communicate the answer to the inquiry to the customer.
6. Append case notes to the case summarizing its resolution and close the case.

The technologies to do this are the ones for:

• Multichannel communication. This category comprises technologies that support the business processes for interacting with customers over voice, electronic, and social communication channels. These technologies include automatic call distributor, computer telephony integration, interactive voice response, speech recognition, predictive dialing, email response management, chat, co-browse, virtual assistants, social media adapters, proactive outbound notification, and mobile customer service applications.
• Knowledge management. This category comprises technologies that are used to identify, create, review, publish, and maintain multimedia content, including video, that allows customer service agents to answer customers’ questions and allows customers to find answers to their questions via Web self-service. These technologies include knowledge management, video, and customer communities.
• Agent productivity solutions. This category comprises technologies that agents use to create and manage an incident (case) in response to a customer inquiry. It includes applications that are used to monitor agents’ answers to questions to ensure a consistent service experience in accordance with company policy and applications used to optimize agent staffing and scheduling. These technologies include case management, process guidance, unified agent workspaces, quality monitoring, and workforce management.
• Customer service analytics. This category comprises analytics used to deliver the optimal service interaction that is targeted to the persona of the customer and the issue at hand. Technologies include next best action and interaction (speech and text) analytics.
• Voice of the customer. This category comprises technologies that customers use to interact with their peers to share advice, best practices, and how-to information. It includes the technologies customers use to voice their opinions regarding a company’s products and services over social channels. Technologies include enterprise feedback management systems and social listening platforms.

Original article by Kate Leggett @ https://go.forrester.com/blogs/13-06-27-what_is_customer_service_technology/