Ever waited for a table at a restaurant? Ever been given one of those coasters that flashes & vibrates when your table is ready? Ever wished there was an easier way to keep your place in line?
“Pagers are so obsolete compared to all the technology we use today,” said Sprovieri, founder of ReadyPing. He had enough while double-waiting in line at a restaurant that was out of pagers. “I thought to myself, I’m waiting in line for a pager so I can wait in line for a table? There has to be a better way.”
Having grown up in the restaurant industry, Sprovieri knew the problems restaurant owners had with those things, too. “I’ve never talked to a restaurant owner who loves their pager system. The upfront cost is huge and pagers get lost, broken, and are really expensive to replace.”
ReadyPing eliminates the need for pagers altogether. With simple to use, web-based software, restaurants can now quickly and easily send a text to any cell phone in the U.S.
Imagine walking in to your favorite restaurant on Friday night and being told there’s an hour wait. No big deal, but the waiting area is packed and the bar is full. Since you’ve handed off your cell phone number to the hostess, you can run across the street to a bar while you wait, or do a little shopping next door. You are able to wait how and where you want until your table when it’s ready.
Awesome for customers, but even more awesome for restaurant owners. The cost to run the program is $49 per month, per location with texting at just 5 cents a pop. And when was the last time you didn’t have your cell phone within arms’ reach? Especially if you’re waiting for a table text.
But ReadyPing isn’t just limited to use by restaurant owners. Hotels, auto mechanics, hairstylists – anyone service business where customrers wait can benefit from using ReadyPing. You can run it only during a ‘busy seasons’, or run it year-round.
As ReadyPing grows, it will begin offering opt-ins for SMS marketing to dirve business during slow periods and is exploring integration opportunities with systems such as OpenTable. “There are so many more things that can be done with our platform that you simply can’t do with pagers,” says Sprovieri. “It’s a huge efficiency tool.”
You can find out more at www.readyping.com and their YouTube demo.
View Comments (1)
That is an extremely useful idea! Often we're trying so hard to think of the next big thing that we think about really abstract ideas, but this is spot-on and simple. I have to assume that there is a proprietary user interface that provides a value added user experience and discourages prospects from attempting this on their own. Good stuff!