Phone systems for restaurants
At 6:30 on a Friday the host stand can't answer every call. Half of them are "what time do you close" and "do you take reservations." The other half are takeout orders, and those are the ones you can't afford to miss.
Get a quoteWhat the phones need to do
- Answer the common questions (hours, address, reservations) without a person.
- Ring several phones at once for takeout, and queue callers instead of a busy signal.
- Play a hold message with something useful, like online ordering.
- Keep the phones up when the internet drops.
How we set it up
We set restaurants up on RingCentral. A short phone menu handles hours and directions, takeout calls ring the host stand and the kitchen phone together, and callers wait in a queue with a message instead of getting a busy signal. The schedule changes routing when you close.
Cloud phones run over your internet. For restaurants we usually add backup internet so the phones and card terminals keep working through an outage; see FAILOVER5.
Things to plan for
- Fire alarm and security lines are often on copper. See our guides on fire alarms and security alarms.
- Your numbers: we port the main number, so the number on your menus and listings keeps working.
Questions
Can the phone system take orders automatically?
Not by itself. RingCentral routes and queues calls; taking orders automatically needs a separate ordering service. What it does well is make sure order calls get answered.
What happens if the internet goes down?
Calls can forward to a cell phone automatically, and with backup internet the phones keep working normally.
Get a quote
Tell us about your business and what you have today. We'll come back with a plan and a quote.