Ready Ping: Notification Service Transforming The Restaurant Business One Text Message At A Time

Sometimes the best business ideas are the most obvious ones, and Ready Ping is a new business concept that falls right into this category. No one likes to wait around for their table to be ready at a restaurant, and now this business makes sure that they don't have to, by sending a text message when the table is ready.

With Ready Ping, restaurants can sign up for their service to let customers know when their table is ready on busy nights, so they don't have to hang around cluttering the lobby or bar.  While restaurant pagers have been commonly used within the last decade, they are more expensive to maintain and have a higher failure rate; plus customers are confined to waiting in the parking lot or loitering outside of the restaurant until their pager goes off. Since everyone has a cell phone today, using text messages as a form of notification that it's time to eat, is not only obvious, it's also genius.

When using Ready Ping, all restaurants need to do is record their patrons name, party size and a cell phone number into the software, which also maintains a waiting list and keeps of how long each party has been waiting for their table. Once the table is ready, the click the button next to the party's name and a text message is sent.

As with any business, Ready Ping isn't fail-proof; for one, not everyone has a cell phone or uses text messaging, but cell phones can fail too. Patrons may enter areas where there is no cell phone service, they may forget to turn their phone on, or they may run out of batteries and miss the notification and lose their table. Plus, if restaurant patrons are waiting for an undisclosed period of time for their table, they might stray far from the restaurant and take too long to get back when they receive the text message, which can create a world of problems for the restaurant.

So, while Ready Ping might be a great idea in theory, its execution may not be quite up to par. Or, it might just transform the restaurant industry as we know it!  What do you think?