Summary: A well run nursery is one that makes parents feel secure. Background checks, ID badging, and a solid check in/out procedure are just part of the total child safety picture. A nursery paging system that allows you to communicate with parents quickly and effectively is a must-have item. Do you run a church nursery or an on-site workplace daycare? Here’s some timely advice on how a text messaging application can help you stay connected, keep kids safe, and make parents happy.

Tips For Establishing Nursery Pager System Protocols

Summary: Are you responsible for the nursery at your church or other family oriented organization? If so, you need a nursery pager system. However, setting up the application is just the start. When there are multiple volunteers using the system, you’ve got to have some ground rules. Get clued in to the basics of church nursery pager protocol. This will ensure your facility’s new communication technology is viewed as a valuable tool rather than an intrusion.

We designed Recess Paging System to work similarly to traditional restaurant paging systems so that you wouldn’t need to change existing operational workflow.

Here’s how it works –

Each guest that is entered into the paging system is assigned a unique guest number.

1. Enter the guest just as you normally would into OpenTable, but don’t close the window.
2. Now enter their phone number into the Recess Paging System.
3. After you create a new guest in the paging system, add the unique guest number into the note field in OpenTable.
4. When you’re ready to page your guest, use the OpenTable note field as a reference. Scroll to the correct customer in Recess Paging System and hit Send Page.

That’s it! Recess Paging System replicates the workflow of a traditional paging system and keeps the process simple.

By the way, if you’d be interested in testing a new desktop version of Recess, contact me here.

Invisible Lines

Americans will stand in line for hours to get the first shot at movie tickets or a “day after Thanksgiving” sale. However, this doesn’t mean they will be happy campers when a wait time stretches from 20 minutes to 45 at a local restaurant.

Your customers probably won’t stampede and trample one another when they hear there is chocolate pudding available at the salad bar. However, text based restaurant paging still provides a nice safety valve that keeps the pressure of fuming customers from getting out of hand. It lets your guests roam free instead of waiting anxiously to hear “Garbled, unintelligible, party of 4” over the intercom.

Visible Service

First impressions are critical when it comes to building confidence in your establishment. When you enter a guest’s information into your system, you can instantly send a text message showing the estimated wait time. This provides immediate verification to your customers. They know your notification protocol actually works and that you are running a streamlined operation.

Ironically, text-message based restaurant paging systems actually give you slightly more room for error. If your timing estimates are a little off, guests aren’t likely to be checking their watches every 30 seconds. They will be distracted by other things.

Timely Promotion

Have you ever been cautioned not to go grocery shopping when you are hungry? In the restaurant biz, the best time to advertise specials and appetizers to your customers is when they are famished! Your wait staff is trained to deliver all the pertinent information during the order taking process.

Of course, we both know they sometimes skip this step when things are really busy. Now, you can take some of the responsibility off their shoulders. Use your restaurant paging system to text the promotional message of your choice when you notify your guests that their table is ready.

Low Conflict Waiting

What about the (very) occasional customer who doesn’t have a cell phone to receive your text based pages? Good news! Your waiting area won’t be crowded and they can relax in a quiet atmosphere with comfortable amenities.

One additional perk of an invisible queue is that clients don’t feel like they are being treated unfairly when someone gets seated ahead of them. Now your hostess won’t get hassled to explain basic logistics like why a party of 2 may get seated while a party of 10 is still waiting in line.

Keep on Texting

Text-message based restaurant paging systems don’t have limited range. You can send ongoing promotional updates anytime, anywhere. Just remember that no one likes Spam. You probably don’t offer this mystery meat on your menu, so don’t send virtual spam to your customers either! Give your guests the above board “double opt-in” choice so you know they will be happy to receive future communication from you.

To find out more about our text message restaurant paging system, check out the website here: http://www.recessapp.com

There are three ways to manage waits –

1. Manage the actual wait time. This involves accurately matching resources to customer demand. Ideally, customers would experience no wait whatsoever because the business would be able to accommodate all customers regardless of demand.
2. Manage the perception of the wait time. Because it’s almost impossible to do the above, businesses utilize various methods of entertainment or distractions during wait times. Examples of this would include televisions or shops within a waiting area, banks using winding lines, elevators using mirrors and music, etc. When not completely focused on the wait time itself, research shows that customers perceive the wait time to be shorter than it actually is, in turn increasing customer satisfaction.
3. The last and most effective method, make the wait invisible by creating a virtual queue. Effectively, this is what the Recess Paging System does. By allowing customers to reserve their spot in the queue and then do whatever they choose in the mean time, a virtual queue creates the effect that there is no real wait time at all. Disney has been perfecting this method in their theme parks for over a decade, creating a system called Fastpass.

Disney has thrown millions, if not billions, of dollars into perfecting this system over the years to increase customer satisfaction within their recreational parks. Instead of using bulky and expensive kiosks, laptops, or FM transceivers, Recess takes the same virtual queue system and wraps it into a neat little package. The entire system runs off of an iPhone or iPod Touch and notifies guests by texting their cell phones.

With Apple recently lowering the price of a new iPod Touch to under $200, isn’t the investment worth making your customers happy?

If you’d like to read the mentioned article, you can find it here: Managing Real and Virtual Waits in Hospitality and Service Organizations.

Since our application approval on August 1st, 2009, we’ve had over 150 new beta users sign up to use the Recess paging system. Thank you all for the great feedback that you have been providing us with!

Here are some examples of how our beta testers are using Recess:

• A cycling group in California that would like to have cyclists check in and then notify them when it’s time to launch
• A watch repair business in New Orleans that would like to notify their customers when their watch is ready for pickup
• A University medical Skills Center, an advisory office, in Ohio would like to notify students when their advisor is ready to see them
• Automotive repair shops and quick service oil change businesses
• Several restaurant groups throughout the U.S.

Every day we’re making Recess easier to use and more effective at communicating with your customers.

If you’re interesting in checking out Recess, you can either download Recess Paging System and create an account or apply to become a beta tester.

Click here to launch iTunes and check out the application.

Thanks to all those that have made this possible and has helped take it this far, including inZania and Aleksey Gureiev!

Check out http://recessapp.com for more info and follow us on Twitter @recessapp.

What is Recess App?

Recess App is an application that runs on a handheld touch screen device (iPod Touch, iPhone, Nokia N800, etc.) that allows you to manage a waitlist and send out text message (SMS) pages. We’ve thought of a couple really cool use cases for this application –

Restaurants

Instead of getting one of those buzzer pagers at your favorite restaurant, just plug your phone number in and you’ll get a text message when your table is ready. You don’t have to be within any particular distance to the restaurant and you can reply back to the hostess if you need more time.

Amusement Parks

Instead of standing around and waiting in line for hours, you can just plug your phone number in to reserve your spot in line. Guests are placed in buckets (according to the capacity of the ride/attraction) and the entire bucket is messaged when it’s time to come back.

Doctor’s and Dentist’s Offices

Even though you have an appointment, sometimes it can take up to an hour before the physician can actually see you. When you sign in, just type your phone number in and the doctor can shoot you a text when they’re almost ready to examine you.

Pharmacies

I don’t know about you, but I drop off my prescription and then wander around aimlessly looking at groceries and gadgets for the quoted “15 minutes”. You can come in, drop off your prescription, put your phone number in, and get some actual shopping or errands done and know exactly when the prescription is ready to be picked up. We might also be able to tie your phone number to your actual prescription and send you text message reminders to take your meds

These are just a few of the places we can alleviate the pain of waiting around. Imagine never having the stand in line for anything ever again!!

I’ll have a demo up soon with more information. If you know anyone that could use Recess, send them our way – we’re currently looking for partners that would like to help us test the application.

Recess. That’s right, just like grade school. We’ll let you know when it’s time to come in.

Recess is an iPhone app that replaces pagers in restaurants.  Customers can now receive notification via their cell phone when their table is ready.  We like to say,

“We’ll let you know when it’s time to come in.”

The cool part is that it’s not just for restaurants.  We’ll let you know when your car is ready, if your doctor is running late or if you have to pick the kids up early from daycare.  Re-capture your free time and make the most of your day.

You can find more by visiting recessapp.com or following us on Twitter @recessapp.