By Daniel Price, Customer Impact Scheduler

When I go to restaurants, I’m still cut from the old school cloth in that I try not to let technology get in the way of a good meal. Nothing is worse than dining with someone and seeing their face buried in their cell phones the entire meal. As a general rule, I try to keep my phone in my pocket when at the table.

Restaurants are one of the final places to escape from technology creeping into our lives, if we want. Unfortunately, new technology, like table-top ordering devices and other advances, has begun to replace personal customer service. I feel like we are being stripped of the human aspects that make a night out at a restaurant so pleasant.

However, I came across an article Mobile Technology helps a restaurant improve service the other day and was happy to see that new technology seems to be helping certain aspects of the dining experience, but does not remove the entire interaction with a server. This Canadian sports bar and grill, along with many restaurants, is equipping their staff with tablets to take orders and place them in the dining room. This has increased the speed and efficiency of getting orders to the kitchen staff to begin preparing. No longer do they need to wait on an order slip. They can see orders come in from the tables in real time. The tablets also help restaurants better track ordering trends, where they need to improve, and turn over tables much quicker. This allows the server to be more available for requests from their customers, as there is less time spent going back and forth to the kitchen. It also makes the wait time for your meal shrink, and also reduces wait times for tables if the restaurant is very busy.

I’m naturally hesitant about technology taking over yet another enjoyable experience, like dining out. However, it appears this company is doing it in a tasteful enough manner to allow it to help enhance the customer service experience, not replace it. What do you think?

Featured Image by Pixabay