The fact that there are no conclusions about what the restaurant might to do fix the problem is a bit of a let down.
At the end of the day, social pressure to put down your damn phone is probably the best solution. But if the restaurant isn't up-scale enough to use social pressure, there are probably other options.
Given that a significant number of customers were requesting wifi access, I wonder if some sort of landing page could be used to encourage the customer to choose something more quickly.
Some other subtle tricks might work as well. E.g waiters might give an explicit time frame ("I'll check back in 3 or 4 minutes") instead of the more common open-ended "in a few minutes"/"in a bit"/"later".
It also seems like the "request to be seated elsewhere" problem would be easy enough to solve by allowing customers, when they arrive, to select a table or ask for the soonest available table. I have a feeling most parties would select the latter. And then there's an implicit agreement -- whether a table is selected or not -- that the person will sit where the waiter take them.
The pictures of food/friends/etc. is annoying and probably not solvable except by social pressure. Except maybe the hostess (or another staff member) could field these sorts of requests so that waiters don't get behind with other tables.
"Today's wifi password will be provided once you have ordered. Our in-house photographer will be happy to take a photo for you, please inform your waitperson."
[Of course no in-house photographer need be provided, or a waitperson could be designated, or you could outsource photographs if it proved popular; for a charge of course.]
At the end of the day, social pressure to put down your damn phone is probably the best solution. But if the restaurant isn't up-scale enough to use social pressure, there are probably other options.
Given that a significant number of customers were requesting wifi access, I wonder if some sort of landing page could be used to encourage the customer to choose something more quickly.
Some other subtle tricks might work as well. E.g waiters might give an explicit time frame ("I'll check back in 3 or 4 minutes") instead of the more common open-ended "in a few minutes"/"in a bit"/"later".
It also seems like the "request to be seated elsewhere" problem would be easy enough to solve by allowing customers, when they arrive, to select a table or ask for the soonest available table. I have a feeling most parties would select the latter. And then there's an implicit agreement -- whether a table is selected or not -- that the person will sit where the waiter take them.
The pictures of food/friends/etc. is annoying and probably not solvable except by social pressure. Except maybe the hostess (or another staff member) could field these sorts of requests so that waiters don't get behind with other tables.