Online Employee Scheduling for Restaurants at Schedulefly

Restaurant Job Postings Made Terribly Simple and Easy

2010-03-08T10:28:00.004-05:00

Wow! Wes just knocked it out of the park with our new job posts tool. You simply won't find an easier way to post a restaurant job, as well as manage the incoming resumes, share comments with fellow managers, etc. Enough commentary. Just watch this....

Keepin' It Simple & Fun,

Wil @ Schedulefly

BC Restaurant News: Schedulefly Engages Restaurant Employees, Making Scheduling And Staff Communication Easier

2010-02-25T10:39:00.023-05:00

An article in the Feb/Mar 2010 issue of BC Restaurant News talks about how Linkedin, Facebook and Schedulefly are using their social applications to help restaurants find, manage and communicate with their staff. We are thrilled to be included in such great company!

"...Schedulefly may just be the tool that gets rid of your staffing headaches once and for all. It makes staffing your restaurant easy and efficient, and engages everyone in your business."

Check out the one page article below.

You can also find the BC Restaurant News article online - page 13.

Cool Article!

The Faces of Schedulefly...

2010-02-25T10:06:00.002-05:00

One thing we've learned is that people care a lot more about what our users say about Schedulefly than what we say about it. In fact, we're very focused on letting our users do as much talking as possible for us - they are the true "Faces of Schedulefly." After all, who cares what we think? We're admittedly biased. And we're passionate about what we do, which is cool, but our passion is not nearly as contagious as the passion oozing from the people that use Schedulefly in their restaurants every day.

So instead of a filling up our web site with a bunch of content we've written about us, we prefer to share stories from our users. Which led us to buy a cool Flip video cam, which we send around to customers. We don't tell them what to say. Not even a hint. We simply ask them to say what they think about Schedulefly. And we have over 40 quick clips now, with many more on the way. Here's a fun "movie" I made, with quick snippets from a bunch of different clips...

And here's a cool display of all of the videos we have to date - they're all short and sweet, so check a few out....

The Schedulefly Flip cam is traveling all over the U.S. and Canada, coming home every time with more fun, cool user videos. Stay tuned for more....

Wil @ Schedulefly

Got Coverage?

2010-02-24T12:57:00.003-05:00

About a year ago, a lot of our quick service and fast casual restaurant customers were asking for a bar graph view of their staff schedules. They wanted an easy way to see of they had any gaps in coverage. We thought a simple graph view would be useful to most or all of our restaurant customers. So we did it. Since you can color code your shifts, the graph is very easy to view.

We've had it for a year now - I'm not sure all of our customers have checked it out yet. So here you go....

Keepin' It Simple & Fun,

The Schedulefly Team

"Schedulefly has taken scheduling & communicating with our staff to another level..."

2010-02-23T09:43:00.008-05:00

This is a cool testimonial from Scott Young at The Palm - Tribeca in NYC:

"Schedulefly has taken scheduling & communicating with our staff to another level. Rather than using an Excel spreadsheet and "saving as" I can copy the previous week's schedule and rotate my stations in a matter of minutes. I also find it very easy to look at a schedule and see who is available to work an extra shift or who not to schedule. Controlling labor costs with Schedulefly is easier than any other program out there. Schedulefly also has allowed us to communicate important training documents, pictures of new menu items and wines to our staff. Trading shifts amongst restaurant employees has always been a tricky thing. Did both employees sign off on it? Did a manager sign off on it? With Schedulefly it's all done online and in real time."

Also, check out all of the documents that Scott and his team conveniently have available to view from anywhere, any time, online. There are actually more than 30 documents, so one screen shot only shows about 1/3 of their list! None of these documents ever has to be printed and provided to all employees. No waste. No mess. No staff meeting just to hand out a bunch of paper. Each document takes just one click to upload and to alert all employees to view it.

It Used to be "The Pits" Trying to Communicate with Everybody...

2010-02-22T13:46:00.004-05:00

Eric Harris is the GM of The Pit in Raleigh, N.C. He's got over 100 restaurant staff members to help serve up the masses who come to taste mouth watering barbecue cooked up by Ed Mitchell. With so many employees, it used to be impossible to communicate important information with all of them at one time.

But that immediately changed when he started using Schedulefly's easy restaurant employee scheduling & communication app. Now he can type one sentence and send it out to everybody as an email, a text, and a Message Wall post - with a single click. But don't take it from us - here's what he has to say:

Keepin' It Simple & Fun,

The Schedulefly Team

Schedulefly's Interview On UrbanBacon.com

2010-02-17T15:51:00.006-05:00

Wes Aiken, Schedulefly's founder, was recently interviewed by the guys at UrbanBacon.com - a new service that lets you search for restaurant deals in your city. They also have a great blog where they discuss restaurant trends, social media, and how technology is helping the industry.

The interview covers the story of Schedulefly, why it was created and the 3 owner's philosophy on business and keeping things simple.

Check it out!
http://blog.urbanbacon.com/2010/02/interview-schedulefly/

How Do I Find Out My Schedule? Let Me Count the Ways....

2010-02-16T16:24:00.002-05:00

Our restaurant customers love how Schedulefly enables staff members to easily find out when they're working. The Schedulefly web site, text message, email, Facebook, and iGoogle are all easy, quick ways to see your schedule. As you might imagine, all of the "When am I working this week?" phone calls are eliminated. That's right - you are reading this correctly - no more schedule calls! None. Zip. Zero. So you can focus on stuff that matters without the interruptions and hassles!

Check out this quick tour...

Keepin' It Simple & Fun,

The Schedulefly Team

We Feel We Can Do It In House

2010-02-15T07:24:00.011-05:00

Recently a restaurant group checked out Schedulefly. On paper, they could not have been a better fit: 20 locations, nice casual, full service, generally young staff. But after some internal meetings, they told me: "We have a very talented IT department and we feel we can build something just like this in house."

There are tons of articles published on the build vs buy debate. One thing that seems consistent in these is that the decision to build makes sense when the solution is related to a core business process and owning the solution will help differentiate the company from the competition. In this situation it may well be worth the investment in time and money to craft a custom solution to ensure that the competition can’t just go out and buy the same software. Buying, on the other hand, makes sense when the solution is related to a commodity business process. The time, money and IT resources that are freed from buying a simple easy to deploy and adopt solution can be spent on custom systems that actually give the business a competitive edge.

Of course, I'd suggest that Schedulefly - at about $1/day/location - makes more sense than the cost for their IT staff to build (and own) an application, update it, maintain it, train employees, train new hires, field questions, provide support – not to mention the opportunity costs of IT working on something else more important. We are very good at restaurant employee scheduling and communication and it is all we do. We keep things simple and easy which allows us to continue to be out in front of changes and developments to ensure we make our customers' lives easier. Since Schedulefly customers are spreading the cost with tons of other customers, they only pay a small recurring amount to resolve a problem that would likely be a distraction and costly to solve themselves.

Keepin' It Simple & Fun,

Wil @ Schedulefly

Dial Into Schedulefly On the Fly

2010-02-11T09:45:00.003-05:00

Need to blast a critical message to all staff's cell phones but your not at the computer? Need to approve a schedule change that you were just alerted to - but your running errands? No sweat. It is terribly simple to do on our mobile site.

Just point your favorite mobile device at http://m.schedulefly.com and do any of the following...quickly.

- View Today's Crib Sheet (who is at work, daily notes and events)
- View Your Schedule, Offer up Shifts and Pickup Shifts
- Approve or Decline Shift Trade Requests
- Check and Post to Your Message Wall
- Read and Reply to Inbox Messages
- View Employee Directory and Contact Information
- Check Labor Costs against Sales Forecasts

Also - if you have more than one location and use the Schedulefly Dashboard - the mobile site will show you your locations and let you choose the one you'd like to visit. You can hop back and forth between locations too.

Fun Data Center Field Trip!

2010-02-10T12:45:00.007-05:00

We made a quick day trip to Raleigh yesterday to slip a new Dell server into the rack at our data center. We co-locate our web and database servers in Raleigh NC at a company called Hosted Solutions. The SAS 70 Type II certified data center is impressive. We only spent about 20 minutes at our server cage on this visit but I wanted to blog some highlights because it is such a cool experience.

1. As we entered the facility lugging a new server, some rack rails and a backpack full of cords, we found ourselves in a holding area with a security guard [see below, nice guy] behind a ballistic-rated glass window. Yes, ballistic.

2. He had 6 monitors showing activity inside and outside the building - including the parking lot. I saw my car - so I guess he watched us pull in.

3. After he eyeballed us and asked us who we were via a speaker - we told him were the Schedulefly guys. We handed him our driver's licenses and a signed a visitor log.

4. He looked at it our info and then transported our badges to us via a contraption like drive up bank tellers use. He then touched a button and a door to the left of him unlocked and opened. I had no idea it was even a door - it had no handle.

5. We walked through and now we were in a small room with no doors. It is a man trap room that you can not get in or out of without a biometric scan by the guard. It is like some room from Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, no windows or door handles. The guard entered from one side and he scanned us in through the other side. We were in! We were then escorted to our cage so he could unlock it.

6. On the way to our rack - we passed countless racks of humming Dell servers and I could not help but think how COLD it was in there. Had to be less than 50 degrees. I zipped up my down vest. We also passed the NOC (Network Ops Center) - which looks like a scene from War Games. Engineers monitoring activity in the data center. It's very cool.

7. As we rounded corners and passed into new rooms, we walked across large sticky mats that cleaned the dust from our shoes. You would walk across and it felt like glue. When you were off - nothing. Weird feeling.

8. We got to our cage and the guard opened her up using a laser etched key with a magnetic signature! We said thanks and he stared at us and left. We eyeballed our servers and all the little lights were twinkling. Check.

9. We mounted the new server in the rack. We hooked it to our redundant power, redundant switches, redundant firewall and redundant Internet drops.

10. We labeled the new server, snapped a few pics and left. On the ride back we discussed the plan for this new machine. We were like proud parents having just dropped off their kid at camp. We have so many dreams for this new addition to our family. It's going to play a part in taking care of our customer's and their data. It is going to make us proud!

Here are a few pics...

The guard

The new server

Our rack and our founder

Thanks for reading!

The Schedulefly Team

Who Am I Working With Tomorrow Night?

2010-02-10T10:37:00.005-05:00

Let's face it: restaurant staff often care less about when they work than who is on the schedule with them. I remember the days so clearly when I was setting up for a big weekend in the summer at The Bridge Tender on Wrightsville Beach NC. Rolling silverware, loading up the bread warmers and making TONS of sweet tea. The phone at the hostess stand would ring and I would hustle out of the kitchen to grab it. Maybe it was a last minute party of 20 that I could add to my section ($$)...or maybe it was Alec Baldwin calling to let me know he and Kim Bassinger were coming in (yes, he did that. I waited on them 1/2 dozen times I bet). In fact - I even had to sing Happy Birthday to Kim's father one time with 6 other waiters while she stared at us. Yes, seriously. It was awful.

Sorry, anyway, so the phone call was hardly ever Alec, sometimes a last minute reservation - but more often than not an employee wanting to know who was managing tomorrow night or who they were closing with. Both of these would often a spark a shift trade - especially on weekends when getting out of the restaurant ASAP and going to Red Dogs was very very important. I definitely remember some very lazy guys who were terrible at cleaning up and closing with them was a nightmare. Combine that with a closing manager who is nit picky and wants everything spotless - and you can forget going out after work. By the way, this was such a problem with 60+ young staff that calling the restaurant for this kind of stuff was forbidden. So guess what? People would drive over just to see who else was working with them tomorrow night. Crazy, really?

The point here is that knowing who your working with is often as important as when your working. Schedulefly makes is easy to see when your friends (or those you might want to avoid) are working...

Keepin' It Simple & Fun,

Wes @ Schedulefly

Where the Heck is the Staff Phone List?!?!?!

2010-02-09T06:54:00.003-05:00

Last week I ate lunch at a new wings and rings restaurant nearby. I bellied up to the bar and ordered some wings and a Bud Light, and started chatting up the bartender.

It turns out the she's normally a night time bartender, but - get this - this place had been open only three days, and the daytime bartender didn't show up. No call. No communication. Nothing. She just didn't come to work. So guess what happened? The manager had to drop everything, find his phone list, and start calling every employee trained as a bartender - desperately hoping to find somebody who could work. He got lucky and found the nice young lady who took care of me.

Now this story isn't unique - it's probably happened to most people reading this, and it will happen again. However, until now restaurant communication was a problem, and it took lots of phone calls and voice mails to try to track somebody down. But had the manager used Schedulefly, he could have blasted a text and email to all bartenders with a single click - and asked who could come in. No phone calls. No voice mails. Just one click and everybody would instantly get notified of the fire drill. Easy and fast restaurant staff communication. Here's an example...

This could also be done from a Blackberry, iPhone, or any mobile web phone...

I was also curious why the person who was scheduled wasn't there. Maybe she wrote down the wrong schedule when she saw it posted at work. Or maybe she called to find out when she was working, and somebody told her the wrong day / time. Or maybe she just decided she didn't want to work there! Funny thing is, Schedulefly would have also helped with the first two scenarios. She would not have had to write down her schedule or call and find out - rather, her schedule would have been available at www.schedulefly.com and on Facebook and iGoogle. Oh, and it would have been texted and emailed to her as well. Point is, she definitely would have know she was supposed to be there, and a fire drill may have been avoided altogether.

Keepin' It Simple & Fun,

Wil @ Schedulefly

You Can't Spill Coffee on This...

2010-02-08T11:02:00.004-05:00

Most restaurants have a paper-based manager logbook in the back office. It's used to help managers communicate, assign tasks, schedule meetings, keep checklists, let the next manager know what time the beer delivery guy is this afternoon, etc. It’s a simple organizational tool that all managers use.

And for years the only option was pencil and paper and a book that had to stay at the restaurant. Coffee could be spilled on it. It could be lost. A recently fired manager could take it on his way out the door. Any number of things could happen to cause disruptions, confusion, and headaches.

Alas, no longer. Available from anywhere with Internet access (computer or mobile device), never lost or damaged, customizable - the list of benefits over paper-based books goes on and on. And of course Schedulefly's customers leverage "FlyNotes," our terribly simple, intuitive, customizable, web-based manager communication tool....

Click play to see it in action.

Keepin' It Simple & Fun,

Wil @ Schedulefly

The Hooters Team in Miami Loves Schedulefly!

2010-02-06T13:45:00.007-05:00

The Hooters in Doral Florida is ranked the #1 Hooters in the world. There are 90 very busy girls there and a management team that has to stay on the ball to keep work schedules fine-tuned and communication flowing. The staff enjoy the simplicity and ease of use of our web based software - they've even said we make it fun. They enjoy the convenience of checking their schedules and communicating with the other girls from anywhere. The girls at this particular Hooters are also some of our most active mobile users as well - trading shifts, posting wall messages and checking their schedules on the go - from their mobile devices. The GM there, Steve, has this to say about how our simple software is helping his business.

"Schedulefly is easy for me and fun for our girls. It saves me several hours of scheduling time per week. In addition, the girls love being able to receive their schedules via text message or their Facebook pages, as well as being able to trade shifts and request time off online or on the fly on their iPhones and Blackberries. And we have completely eliminated scheduling mis-reads. I highly recommend Schedulefly."

While making life for Steve and his management team easier, we've also managed to make it fun for all the girls. Check out what they had to say about Schedulefly...

Thanks for watching!

The Schedulefly Team

Three Guys And A Service

2010-01-31T07:54:00.010-05:00

We recently updated Schedulefly's "About Us" page so potential customers and partners could learn more about us, our philosophy and who we are here to serve. The page was getting wordy so I thought I'd cut some out and share it here in this post.

Our Philosophy
Lots of web businesses don't tell you who their people are. Or they attempt to seem bigger than they are. We, on the other hand, like transparency and we are proud to be small. We don't just say we like to keep it simple, we actually live and breath it. The business model that we have created allows us to keep our team lean and our overhead low. The less people and the less processes and the less stuff to decide on and manage - the better.

Who We Are
We're currently three guys in three different cities in N.C. (Wilmington, Raleigh, Charlotte). We mostly work out of our houses and coffee shops. Our web and database servers live in an impressive data center in Raleigh NC. We have some occasional contract help, but we don’t believe we'll ever have - or need - more than a handful of people around here. That's because we believe in the value - and beauty - of simplicity. We have a simple web-based service with a familiar interface - not too many screens and buttons and settings. We have only added the stuff that really matters - thoughtful features you'll actually use. In fact, you'll probably even have some fun! And because we keep things intuitive, simple, and easy we don't need many people to help take care of our customers. We don't have investors, so nobody is breathing down our necks to grow faster. Instead we grow one restaurant at a time, and we take great care of them, and they almost all renew every month.

Who Uses Our Product
We created Schedulefly for restaurants, and we keep a laser focus on helping restaurants. We mostly serve indies, groups, small chains, and franchisees. More importantly, we serve people who like to keep things simple - and fun! They don't want a lot of bells and whistles and layers and rules and regulations and buttons and settings. Our customers love Schedulefly mainly because its simple. Simple to deploy. Simple to use. Simple to get a new employee started. And fun for all involved. Our customers use words like "Love" and "Fun" - see for yourself.

Wil, Tyler and Wes
The Schedulefly Team

Quick Easy Above-Store Visibility & Communication

2010-01-29T15:39:00.002-05:00

We tried to make our multi-unit dashboard both simple and powerful. Easily check scheduled labor costs for any location. Blast emails and texts to all employees. And post important documents. All with - you guessed it - one...single...click. Check it out....

Keepin' It Simple & Fun,

Wil @ Schedulefly

Where Do Tens of Thousands from the Restaurant Community Come Together Online? The Schedulefly Network...

2010-01-26T12:39:00.003-05:00

The Schedulefly Network is available to every Schedulefly user. It’s a fun, simple place to share ideas, tips and best practices, ask questions about Schedulefly or about anything ("What's your favorite food?" was a recent post), and socialize. A quick screencast showing how folks are having fun - and getting significant value - on the Network.

Keepin' It Simple & Fun,

Wil @ Schedulefly

The Busines Web Theory - Will Business Apps Ever Be As Easy To Use As Consumer Apps?

2010-01-25T14:23:00.006-05:00

Some will, but since the requirements for building these two kinds of web applications are so different, they tend to move in different directions after the very first line of code is written. Consumer web apps are usually focused on people, ease of use and simplicity while Business web apps (especially Enterprise apps) are focused more on functionality, security, rules and tightly coupled integrations. It certainly seems like there is a trend to merge these two with the explosion of multi-tenant SaaS applications on the web (software as a service), but it's challenging to pull off and tough to sell. One of the challenges is changing the perception that simple hosted software is not going to help a business that is complicated. Complexity seems to need complexity.

In 2006 I attended Salesforce.com's Dreamforce event. In the keynote speech, Marc Benioff talked about his theory called the "Business Web" and the idea that business software like Salesforce.com should be as easy to use as consumer websites like eBay and Amazon. This theory is inspiring. Why are web apps used by consumers so easy to use while most business apps are so complicated? You can visit consumer web sites and get your personal business done quickly and easily - yet many business applications require roll out, on site technicians and training. Why can't business software be easy and intuitive like consumer software?

While writing this - I think back to a meeting my business partner Wil and I had with a prospect in early 2009. We flew across the country to demo Schedulefly to a prospect with a few hundred locations. We were excited for sure! We were anxious to show them how our product would make their lives easier and really simplify scheduling and communication with their thousands of staff. After seeing a demo of Schedulefly, the executives in the meeting looked at us and said: "It looks like a great product, but it seems like something is missing. It seems too easy." We were a tad caught off guard, yet smiled and asked what they thought was missing. Maybe our demo skipped over it or maybe we moved too fast. They could not answer the question. Later that evening over a beer, Wil and I high-fived at the thought of it seeming too easy. We didn't make the sale - but we were onto something.

A year later, I can think of a few reasons why that may have happened:

1. There was no discussion between us and their IT team about software installations, or a big roll out that would require time and training. There were no "documents" to pass out explaining complicated features related to security or governance or integration. Rolling it out to hundreds of locations would surely require many people, many hours, on site visits and lots of training right?

2. There were no busy looking screens with loads of data entry fields, check boxes, drop down boxes, complex rules etc. This is likely what they are used to using. Surely, to be useful to a complicated business, the software must look complicated and need lots of explanation right? How could it be so simple and help their business?

3. They were not already using inexpensive web based software to help run their business. The systems they had implemented to date were likely expensive, difficult to install, learn, use and maintain. Schedulefly was none of these things so it was not familiar.

I'm actually glad that meeting went the way it did. We were not right for this particular business and it actually had nothing to do with our size or their size. Even though our software would have added value and made their lives easier, they didn't feel it would because they perceived it to be too easy. They felt they needed more software. It was clear after that meeting and even more clear today that our software is not ideal for all restaurants and that's OK. We could make it more complicated and more automated and bigger, but we passionately believe that keeping it simple and laser focused makes it more reliable and will create a bunch of happy, loyal customers in the end. We like to think of our software as software for "The Business Web".

Are you using business software on the web yet? Let us know what you think and how it helps your business.

Wes @ Schedulefly

Share Wedding Pics with Schedulefly? I Thought Shutterfly did that…

2010-01-22T12:13:00.002-05:00

You can post pictures on your Schedulefly Message Wall, and here’s a fun example:

Keepin’ It Simple & Fun,

Wil @ Schedulefly

Altruism + Schedulefly = Haitian Relief

2010-01-21T15:36:00.003-05:00

I love this story. Empire Eats, a fantastic restaurant group in Raleigh, N.C. that runs some of the best and most popular restaurants in town, decided to donate profits from all locations this Tuesday to the Red Cross. Check out this quick clip on how they spread the word internally and externally with Schedulefly.

Got your own story about your restaurant’s Haitian relief efforts? We'd love for you to post it on this blog, or feel free to email it to me at wbrawley@schedulefly.com

Wil @ Schedulefly

Tired of Wasting Paper?

2010-01-19T07:49:00.005-05:00

Our customers don't need to print paper schedules – employees can check their work schedules on http://www.schedulefly.com, or while logged into Facebook, or on iGoogle or from their mobile device. Or they can just have their schedules emailed or text messaged right to them. So it's nice that so many restaurants can save a couple of pieces of paper every week by not posting a printed schedule.

But what's very cool is how they can literally save reams of paper, by storing all of their important documents on Schedulefly. Menu changes, training documents, HR documents, specials, prep lists, weekly specials, etc. The list goes on. Any document they would typically print and hand out to all employees can be stored on Schedulefly. Even better, you can view a list of employees that have downloaded the documents. Below is a snapshot of O'Leary's Schedulefly Documents tab (O'Leary's is a cool, fun Irish joint in St. Louis, MO: http://www.olearysrestaurant.com/). They have 39 documents posted on Schedulefly – and they never have to make copies for all of their 45 employees!

Keepin’ It Simple & Fun

Wil @ Schedulefly

A Cool Restaurant Foursquare Story

2010-01-15T10:15:00.010-05:00

So I was picking up lunch last week at one of my family's favorite lunch spots in Wilmington - a small local family owned place with fantastic food and really good service. While I was waiting at the hostess stand for our soup and sandwiches - I fired up Foursquare on my iPhone to see what businesses near me might pop up. The place I was standing in popped up. It's a small local favorite and usually has some older patrons so I was surprised they were a Foursquare venue. Old is cool - just sayin'.

Well, I tapped through to "check-in" and I noticed a guy had just checked in 12 minutes before me and was the only person who had ever checked in there. If fact, he was their Mayor! The place is very cozy and small so I quickly scanned the dining room and there he was,the mayor, having lunch with a friend. Not only was he the mayor, but he had also left a "tip" for others to "try the seafood bisque". I thought that was really cool. Of course I tried to see what was on his table and see if he was having his favorite meal - but realized I was staring and felt like a weirdo so I turned my attention back to my iPhone.

As I started to check-in myself, our food came out. The young girl who rang me up is the same girl who always rings me up - very nice, always smiling and seemed approachable so I started a conversation that went like this:

Me: "Did you know your restaurant is on Foursquare?"

Her: "What square?"

Me: "Foursquare - kinda like Twitter except it asks Where are you? It lets you see where your friends are right now and what they like there. It's way cooler for restaurants...and more fun."

Her: "Hmm...ok - so why are you asking?"

Me: "Well - your busy so I'll spare you details on what it is - but there is a guy here right now and I know his name and I know he comes here often and I even know his favorite soup but I have never seen him before in my life. He is sitting right over there. He is the mayor of your restaurant! I just thought you might like to know your mayor is present."

Her: "[smiling - laughing] Huh?"

Me: "Ok, Foursquare lets people like that guy "check-in" when they visit your restaurant. His friends see this and can learn more about why he loves your restaurant. People get points for checking in and the person who checks-in the most is your "mayor". It's like a game. It's cool for a restaurant because that guy can leave tips and to dos for others that visit your restaurant. In fact, he left a tip to try the seafood bisque and I'd love to try it. Can you change my french onion soup order to the bisque?"

Her: "Sure!"

I then showed her my iPhone and how I could see this guy was there - we looked at their venue page showing anyone who's been there recently, who is there now, the mayor's photo and tip he left about the seafood bisque. I could see her realizing how cool this was so she called the owner over and explained it to him. They kept nodding their heads like whoa - this is amazing - and thanked me for showing it to them. I paid and I left. As I was walking out I noticed the owner walk over to the mayor to talk to him. They were laughing and shaking hands. I suspect a free cup of seafood bisque was being poured soon after....

Restaurants - get on Foursquare, see who your loyal customers are, what they like and if they are there right now! You can also sign up as a business and post specials for your mayor and others who visit your restaurant frequently. The cool thing is that even if people are checking in next door at your competitor's venue - their phones will know they are near you - and your specials will pop up! Come on - really? How could you not try to persuade customers at other places close by to come visit you?

Here is some more info for businesses and (for good ideas) a listing of a ton of restaurant venue pages with specials they are offering loyal customers.
http://foursquare.com/businesses/

Off to check-in at the YMCA just to keep mayor status there. Funny - many people there much more deserving of that title than me.

Wes @ Schedulefly

Ditch Happens

2010-01-14T13:25:00.003-05:00

A customer called today and said she was so thankful to have Schedulefly, because it saves her from stopping what she is doing multiple times per day. You see, she no longer has to pick up the phone to have an employee tell her she needs somebody to pick up her shift because she got her car stuck in a ditch.

I copied her Schedulefly site activity report below. In one day alone last week, Heather approved six shift trade requests. It took her six clicks of a button on her laptop or perhaps from her Blackberry or iPhone (or any web-enabled device). No phone calls. And of course she did not have to field any calls from employees wanting to know when they are working either. That’s because her employees can see when they are working on Schedulefly’s web site. Or on Facebook. Or iGoogle. Or in their email inbox. Or as a text message on their cell phones.

Schedulefly eliminates the phone calls because, well, ditch happens!

Wil @ Schedulefly