User Observation and Interview Notes

User Observation and Interview Notes:

I interview with the waitress name Sarita about the restaurant POS System and how they handle the conflict in the restaurants. Below are the interview notes that I asked:

1. How you take your orders?
2. How much time it takes to prepare the food?
3. Will it be ready by the preparation time?
4. What are the issues regarding the order while writing in paper?
5. Haven’t the employee talk to the manager about changing the order system?
6. How do you handle if something goes out of order?

The waitress (Sarita) was looking little tired, may be because of the tiresome job she had to do. However, she seemed to be looking tidy, clad in black ironed shirt and skirt with black apron tied around her waist. Her hair was neatly tied up and was holding pen and paper pad on her hand to take order from the customers. While I was taking interview, I could see other waiter and waitresses in rush to serve their customers. It was busy night. Some of them were also bringing out the prepared foods from the kitchen while, some of them were rushing to the kitchen with the paper pad on their hands trying to submit as fast as they could. And also I noticed that one of the customer was yelling to waiter and saying he wants to talk to the manager and I asked to Sarita what happed then she told me they forgot to give the paper pad in the kitchen she also mentioned it is very busy so sometimes they are distracted by another customers so they forget to give the order to kitchen and also they are so busy they even do not have time to check on the order so the customer have to wait longer period of time. The food was delayed because they lack the systematic process of sending order to the kitchen. Had there been a proper POS System, there would be less hassle and problems.

Problem Statement:

The restaurants I interviewed uses paper pad to take the order. When they are busy they are having trouble handling the customers and there is no systematic way of taking orders. They take orders from customers and they go to kitchen to give the orders by tearing the paper pad and give the next copy to host to put the entry in the system. Sometimes when the waiters are busy they forget to give orders to kitchen, because of that the customer will not get their food on time so they get mad with waiters. Due to this problem restaurants are getting poor review by the customers. The people working in the restaurants have their goals but there is barrier that prevents achieving those goals which are: Notifying the waiter/waitress from the kitchen when the food is ready. The waiters/waitress want them to notify from the kitchen when they are busy, so they do not have to go back to kitchen time to time but there is nothing available to notify the waiter. Another one is they want to take care of customer as soon as possible in an effective way but they must go kitchen to give the orders time to time so time is being wasted. And lastly, they want to change the restaurant system, but they follow the simple system by taking the orders in paper pad which is not a systematic way in current situation.