Smart Reservation System Project Report

Invention Report - Smart Reservation System
Background Information My invention can help to solve the problem of long wait times at some restaurants. The purpose of this invention is to reduce wait time and to ameliorate customer satisfaction. Dubé, Renaghan, and Miller (1994) say "For financial success, a restaurant's management must make the connection between service attributes and return patronage." Wait time is a crucial element for restaurants and is one of the factors to whether customers are willing to return. They claim customer satisfaction and their willingness to return is affected by the length of a wait before being seated. Bielen & Demoulin (2007) have discovered that "...waiting time satisfaction is not only a service satisfaction
One strategy some restaurants have turned to is increasing the number of employees during popular times. Others may try to attract customers during slower times by offering promotions. Many have started taking reservations, yet they still fall behind when providing services. Zeithaml & Bitner (2002) have found that "...service strategies, implemented appropriately, can be very

profitable." By doing this project, I hope to create a service strategy that can boost customer satisfaction and increase profits. I thought of the Smart Reservation System idea after encountering the following situation. One night, my family was waiting to eat at the Cheesecake Factory when they ran out of pagers. So, they designated two people to taking down names. My dad put down his name and they told us to come back in an hour. When we came back an hour later, the people working there said they never got our name. They were calling out for a Cynthia for quite a while, so my dad thought they may have misheard him and wrote down the wrong name. Luckily, a nice manager asked what was going on and gave us a table. So, after discussing the long wait time with my family, I decided on the idea of creating a system to minimize wait time, which will cause customers to be further
When capacity cannot parallel demand, there will be lines of waiting people (Bateson & Hoffman, 1999). Some restaurants may offer guests drinks or other incentives to satiate them during long wait times. However, excessively long wait times, generally times of over an hour, will still cause guests to be dissatisfied, even though they received incentives. Restaurants might lose chances of making more profit and possibly lose a loyal customer (Bielen & Demoulin, 2007). By creating this invention, I aim to minimize wait time, which will increase profits, customer satisfaction, and chances of customers