Pagers Improve Service at Captain D's
The pagers help create better service and add a dose of serenity at the seafood chain.
By Lisa Bertagnoli, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 8/25/2008 4:40:00 PM
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| Captain D's installed a pager system in the 40 company stores it remodeled in Nashville, Tenn. |
The Nashville, Tenn.-based seafood chain began installing the pager system last year as it remodeled 40 Nashville-area locations to Captain D's Seafood Kitchen. The Kitchen concept features a remodeled, more design-oriented interior and exterior, as well as a menu of new grilled items.
Because the Kitchen concept is a bit more upscale, Captain D's executives wanted the experience to match. Before the advent of the pagers, customers were given an order number, then took a seat and waited for their number to be called over a loudspeaker. They were supposed to be seated during that time, but many would mill around the ordering counter instead. "Customers were not confident that they'd hear the number," says Tony Sorrells, vice president of restaurant services for Captain D's.
Sit and Stay
Now, after customers place their orders, the counter staff hands them a pager, asks them to be seated, and then keys the pager number into the POS system. When the order is ready, that guest's pager number is entered into a transmitter in the kitchen. The pager sounds, and then the guest returns to the counter to pick up the order.
Each store has 20 coaster-size pagers, a charger/return stand and batteries for the charger. Captain D's executives say the system cost less $2,000 per store for equipment and installation.
Director of Training John Nevels adds that the pager system is easy to use. "If you can program an alarm clock, you can use the pager system," he says.
The pagers cut confusion and allow another service touch point, says Tommy Beard, general manager at a 96-seat Captain D's Seafood Kitchen in Murfreesboro, Tenn. "With the pager system, you see the guest come up and can meet them out in the dining room," Beard says.
The pagers also helped with labor because employees don't waste time hunting down guests with trays of food. Before the pagers, "you had to devote a person to finding guests," Beard says.
He says most guests comment on how upscale the pagers seem. However, occasionally someone asks if the pagers are sanitary. They are: Beard says staff wipes them with a sanitizing solution.
Lost pagers, he adds, can be issue: "Sometimes guests come back a week later with the pager, and a few have been thrown away," Beard says. The Murfreesboro location lost seven of 20 pagers within a year's time, prompting Beard to remind the staff to keep track of them.
Peace and Quiet
The result is a quieter, more serene restaurant, says Nevels. "The restaurant doesn't look crowded, so guests don't perceive that they have to wait a long time," he says. Plus, he adds, "they can go find a table because they don't have to stand at the counter."
A redesign, from two snaking lines to two registers with a multiple approach, also relieves congestion and "removes the QSR air," Nevels says.
The pager system is now in use at all 300 corporate-owned Captain D's locations, and is available to franchisees, too. "It's a neat system," Nevels says.
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