NoWait vs ConnectSmart®Host (Formerly DineTime): Head-to Head Comparison

Having a guest management system is crucial to running an efficient restaurant and improving the guest experience. In fact, Toast found that 73% of diners agree that restaurant technology improves their guest experience. If you’re in the market for a guest management system, we have some information to help you out. We’ve compared two of the leading softwares to help you make a decision.

ConnectSmart®Host (Formerly DineTime) vs NoWait

Feature	ConnectSmart®Host	NoWait
Sources:Information was gathered from each company’s respective website as of 2/1/2018.
Support	✔	✔
Custom Floor plans	✔	✔
Flat Monthly Booking	✔	✔
Setup Fee	No	Yes – $250 one-time fee
Reservation Management	✔	✔
Waitlist Management	✔	✔
Analytics Suite	✔	✔
Consumer App	✔	✔
2-Way Text Messaging	✔ (local number provided)	✔
Guest Data Ownership	✔
Server Plan	✔
Kitchen Video Integration	✔
Off-Premise Dining Capabilities	✔
Capterra Reviews Rating	4.7/5	No reviews

Support

ConnectSmart®Host offers 100% live answer support during business hours, additional on-call support after hours, webinar trainings, assigned account managers and more! Nowait offers on-call support, web training, and success manager.

Custom Floor plans

Customizable floor plans created for their software that helps manage server and seating rotation, creating a more efficient front of house.

Flat Monthly Booking

Paying a cover fee per guest can be expensive and difficult to budget. Flat monthly booking is more cost-efficient and makes allocating money easier.

Setup Fee

Some companies charge a setup fee; however, QSR Automations waives this for ConnectSmart®Host users.

Reservation Management

ConnectSmart®Host includes an electronic reservation book (ERB) software to manage all of your mobile, desktop, and call-in reservations in one place. In addition, ConnectSmart®Host has an Availability Plan feature that sets reservation pacing to avoid overbooking and increase your revenue. Nowait was recently purchased by Yelp and provides reservation management through Yelp Reservations. With Yelp Reservations, the ability to book a reservation can very well be directly next to a poor review of your restaurant.

Waitlist Management

You can give each party accurate quote times based on real data. ConnectSmart®Host’s Guest View add-on, you can proactively provide guests information about where they are on the wait list, or even where their food is in the process.

Analytics Suite

The ConnectSmart®Host Enterprise Portal, you can run and print detailed reports, view historical analytics and key metrics, and review daily summaries and snapshots of your operational statistics. Integrates with loyalty programs to help track guests birthdays, anniversaries, allergies, etc. This helps to eliminate inventory and labor inefficiencies, raise food sales, improve table turnover and guest count, and more. Nowait’s software offers restaurant performance and customer trends.

Companion Consumer App

Diners have the ability to search for your restaurant, book a table, update their reservation, or join your wait list – from anywhere.

2-Way Text Messaging

Provide your guests with updates via 2-way text messaging. ConnectSmart®Host even provides you will a local phone number so that guests receive your text from a familiar area code.

Guest Data Ownership

Owning your guest data allows operators to export to create smarter marketing campaigns. With ConnectSmart®Host, your staff is able to make informed decisions based on data. You can collect real-time and historical data on your reservations, wait list, table turns, and seating statistics. You’ll receive daily summaries and snapshots of your operational statistics, too.

Server Plan

A server version can run on Windows and Apple, works in-store with redundancies, comes with all of the features of our Cloud plans and integrates with your point of sale and kitchen automation solution. This is ideal for higher-volume units and/or operators with multiple stores.

Kitchen Video Integration

QSR Automations offers a best-in-class kitchen display system, ConnectSmart® Kitchen. Together, they work to create a well-connected restaurant from back of house to front of house.

Off-Premise Dining Capabilities

With ConnectSmart®Host’s integration to our kitchen display system, it has the ability to filter carryout and delivery orders on customizable tabs like “takeout” within ConnectSmart®Host. The tabs support showing when an order starts cooking in the kitchen, how long the order has been cooking, and what time the order is ready in the kitchen. This makes implementing off-premise dining simple, making it possible to integrate with a third-party delivery solution, implement online ordering or establish a carryout station in your restaurant.

Capterra Reviews Rating

As a restaurant operator, you’re likely familiar with Yelp – the popular third-party review site for restaurants. Capterra is basically the same concept, just applied to software. It gives real customers the chance to rate and review software based on their experiences. This is a great way to shop around and weigh the pros and cons of different products. Check the ConnectSmart®Host Capterra reviews to here what others are saying. QSR’s ConnectSmart®Host restaurant reservation system is reliable and customizable to fit your restaurant’s need. Keep reading to learn more. Subscribe to the blog for more interesting restaurant content!

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About the Author

Emily Wimpsett was a Content & Social Media Specialist at QSR Automations. Emily was born and raised in Louisville, but considers herself a die-hard University of Kentucky fan. For college, Emily attended Indiana University Southeast and obtained a degree in Communications with a track in Advertising. In her free time, Emily enjoys just about every water related activity, but she is partial to kayaking and whitewater rafting.