Other

Daniel R McCullough

Robert K McCullough

There is disclosed a paging system for customers in a fast service or while-you-wait sales or service facility which is capable of being associated with or integrated with existing forms of point-of-sale hardware and software systems. The paging system notifies customers by means of an audio announcement or visual display, or both, that their order for service, identified by customer number, is ready to be delivered upon their return to the customer counter or to the delivery location. The system suppresses keyboard errors and permits correction thereof and provides for the display of several customer numbers on a continual basis until a respective customer number is deleted automatically or in response to manual input. Optionally, a skipped number feature makes service personnel aware of misdirection or unusual delay in fulfilling an order. Provision is made for two-way communication of data between hardware and software for the customer paging function and the conventional point-of-sale software and hardware with which it is associated or integrated.

Automatic customer number paging system

There is disclosed a system and method to call sequentially serviced customers from a large area, such as a retail store, back to a pick-up counter, keeping track of any customer's jobs that have been skipped and not paged after a predetermined time. For example, in a pharmacy a customer is given a number when presenting a prescription to be filled. When the prescription is ready the customer's number is entered and shown on a large display in the center of the store to page the customer. If a number is skipped then this system solves the problem by showing the pharmacist skipped numbers on a screen of a keypad after a preset wait period and advises the pharmacist to determine why the customer was skipped. The system has an algorithm for detecting erroneous entries and recovery if a wrong number is accidentally entered.

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Broken Arrow, OK, United States of America

Daniel R McCullough