Case Study for WhyQ

The customer’s viewpoint:

Duncan and Anna are real foodies and head into Soho to eat in the Dandy & Fine (D&F) restaurant on a wintry Thursday evening. They have been to D&F before and love the food, but are aware of the no booking policy. They have wrapped up warmly to prepare for a long wait out in the cold.

Duncan and Anna’s experience begins as they approach the door at D&F at around 7.30 pm where they are really encouraged by the fact that there seems to be no queue. How unusual for D&F! They greet the hostess, Helen, who advises them that the waiting time for a table for two is about an hour and a half. When they enquire about the lack of queue and ask why the wait is still substantial, Helen informs them that they’ve just implemented a fantastic new system called WhyQ which means that their customers have been able have a relaxed drink elsewhere while they’re waiting without fear of their table being given away. D&F doesn’t have a bar to wait in so this is great news.

Helen goes on to explain the system to Anna and gives her a WhyQ business card. (Duncan is a little technophobic and can only use his phone for calls, if he remembers it at all!) Anna scans the QR code on the WhyQ business card onto her phone and it quickly downloads the free WhyQ App, gives Helen her details and hey presto, a dialogue box pops up in the App confirming Anna’s details, number of people in the party, the estimated wait time and Anna’s position in the queue. Helen goes on to explain that when their waiting time has either dropped to 10 mins or they are first in the queue, Anna will get a text message alerting her.

Anna is delighted! Now she and Duncan can disappear to a nearby bar for a small glass of wine while they wait for their table. How civilised! They thank Helen and go for a drink. 15 minutes into their drink, Anna checks the App and sees that they are already down to position number 4 in the queue from position 7 and that the waiting time has dropped to 50 mins. That’s good news! Having finished their glass of wine, Duncan ponders whether to go to the bar for a second, but is saved in the nick of time by a text from Helen at D&F saying that they are now first in the queue and asking for a response confirming if they still want the table. Anna is required to text 1 for “yes, I want the table and will return within 10 mins to take it” or 2 for “no thanks, I no longer require the table”. Anna texts 1 and she and Duncan leave the bar and return to a smiling Helen who immediately shows them through to their table which has just been prepared.

Anna and Duncan have never had such a relaxed experience whilst waiting for a table at D&F. They love it even more than they did before (if that’s possible!). They eat, drink and chat and leave a generous tip for the waitress before heading back home to see what their tear away teenage daughter has been up to while they’ve been out… All in all a very positive experience!

 

The hostess’s experience:

Helen has worked at D&F for about six months as a hostess and used to hate Thursday and Friday nights. The queues were always horrendous and there were guaranteed to be lots of really irate customers who couldn’t seem to tell the time or at least not the difference between 45 minutes and an hour and a half! Still, she had made her frustrations known to Jack the manager and being a smart tech savvy Kiwi, he had called those dashing chaps from WhyQ to trial their new queue management system. Helen had only been using the system for 2 weeks but already she was more than comfortable with how it worked, then again it’s not rocket science really.

Helen’s night started at 5.30, when she logged on to the WhQ system on her iPad mini to look at demand charts from the previous weeks so she could see how busy she was likely to be. The system has a very Simple interface and is completely web based so Helen can literally pull up the info from anywhere using her login password. Helen sees from the charts that the previous two Thursdays started getting busy around 6.15, with peak waiting times being quoted as an hour and a half between 7pm and 8pm, although she could also see that actual waiting times were closer to an hour. It’s always handy to have that as back up info if you have a particularly difficult guest – especially when they use the old “Do you know who I am?” line to try and jump the queue! Another piece of interesting info Helen picks up from WhyQ is that Thursdays have been very popular with tables of 2, she decides to separate the tables of 4 into 2s so she can accommodate more guests and sticks her head into the kitchen to tell Cristiano the Chef about tonight’s expected level of business.

The evening begins with a bang and D&F is full by 6.25pm just as WhyQ had indicated. Helen has been logging each table on the WhyQ system as they have come in. She had already set up a table plan on the system when they started the trial so all she has to do is click on the table to show how many people sit down. The system records the time they sit down and estimates the time that that table will become available again based on historical table turn times. By 7.15 the system is showing an estimated wait time of up to one and a half hours. The customers have been responding very well to the new system, the explanation is really quick and the bar next door (which belongs to D&F too) is doing a roaring trade! Even more importantly for Helen, there are no more queues of people outside for her to worry about and when the customers do come to claim their tables they are generally very happy, relaxed (sometimes a little tipsy) and ready to enjoy their experience.

At 7.30 Helen is approached by a handsome, if slightly eccentric couple called Anna and Duncan who want a table for two. Helen explains the waiting time and gives Anna a WhyQ card to download the App (apparently Duncan doesn’t know what an App is…). Helen looks at the waiting list on her iPad and adds Anna’s details. They show as number 7 in the queue at a maximum wait time of an hour and a half. Helen presses the confirmation button and the booking details are stored and show immediately on Anna’s phone. Anna seems really happy and marches Duncan off to the bar around the corner for a drink. Meanwhile things are slowing down on the door at D&F. Helen captures the guests as they leave their tables and WhyQ suggests table allocations which Helen either accepts or overrides depending on how the kitchen and waiting staff are coping with demand. The waiting time is coming down slowly and at around 8.40 the system flags the next guest in the queue as Anna and prompts Helen to ask if she wants to send a text message alert. Helen confirms and the system sends a preprogrammed message (Helen wrote it herself when the system was first set up) to Anna asking her to confirm if she still wants the table. Anna responds almost immediately and the WhyQ system shows that a table is available for them to occupy as soon as they arrive. Helen looks over to check that the table has been reset and confirms the allocation.

Anna and Duncan return to D&F a few minutes later and as they approach Helen can’t help but smile to herself as she takes in Duncan’s outfit. Who wears a linen suit and bright pink flowery shirt in the winter anyway? Helen greets Anna by name and takes her coat before showing them straight to table 8. She returns to the door and confirms on WhyQ that the table is now occupied and moves on to the next party on her list who are about to receive a text message. At the end of the night, Helen closes the trading day on the WhyQ system, it updates the database and is ready to be put to bed for the night.

Helen, who has so much more energy left at the end of a shift since WhyQ was adopted is off to go and meet friends for a late drink. She loves her job, it really makes her happy! The days of hand writing waiting lists and dealing with frustrated, cold and hungry guests are so last year.