Letters

In July/August, Hospitality Technology published a Vantage Point column regarding wireless technology and the possible elimination of waiters. Although it is only a vision, it is a very real vision. It seems that we eliminate enough jobs here in the United States. We already outsource information technology, manufacturing and customer service jobs to foreign nations.

Now there is a vision to replace waiters by runners and customer- relationship managers. To me, this spells out another way restaurant owners can replace waiters with seventeen and eighteen-year-old minimum wage runners and customer relationship managers who know nothing about service.
Pablo Sierra
Sierra Hospitality

We'd like to thank Pablo for taking the time to offer a thoughtful response to our idea. We don't have the space to discuss outsourcing but we'd like to address the implications of eliminating waiters.

Pablo warns us about the risks of eliminating experienced wait staff with inexperienced customer- relationship managers "who know nothing about service." It is important to note that the waiter-less restaurant is suited to a casual concept and likely wouldn't work for fine dining. Operators cannot abdicate their role as managers of the restaurant experience when going to a waiter-less restaurant. In fact, we envision customer-relationship managers to be most concerned with delivering the customer experience, not your typical inexperienced host, as Pablo's comments seem to imply.
Gabe Piccoli
Alvaro Ibanez
Cornell University