Customer interaction manager on a restaurant computer

Abstract

An approach is provided for indirectly connecting a customer's mobile smart defies to a point of sale computer located at a business when the customer is making a purchase at the business. The customer's mobile smart device and the POS computer communicate over the Internet with a customer interaction manager executing on an Internet server. This provides an easy to interface for the customer and allows the customer to receive information and send requests to the business without having to wait for personnel working at the business to be available.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method for managing customer interaction with a business implemented by a point of sale computer located at the business and communicating over the Internet with a server computer, the method comprising:
 receiving a playlist from a jukebox located at the business;   starting a purchase transaction for a customer present at the business;   establishing an Internet session with the server computer by transmitting a purchase transaction started notification for the started purchase transaction to the server computer and receiving a unique identifier from the server computer where the unique identifier uniquely identifies the started purchase transaction;   providing the unique identifier and a uniform resource locator (URL) to the customer where the URL is an Internet address serviced by the server computer;   receiving a request from the Internet session with the server computer using the Internet where the request includes the unique identifier; and   processing the received request.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the business is a restaurant. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 transmitting the playlist from the jukebox to the server computer using the Internet session.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3 , wherein processing she received request includes receiving information that includes one or more customer selected items from the jukebox playlist where instruction to play the one or sore customer selected items are transmitted to the jukebox. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4 , wherein processing the customer selected items further includes adding an item to the purchase transaction that represents a charge for playing the one or more customer selected item on the jukebox. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein processing the received request includes receiving information including a car identifier associated with a car parked by a valet service for the customer and where the car identifier with instructions to retrieve the associated car are transmitted to a terminal used by the valet service. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein processing the valet service request further includes adding an item to the purchase transaction that represents a valet parking charge. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 6 , further comprising:
 receiving information from the valet service indicating the car is ready for the customer; and   transmitting information to the server computer using the Internet session where the information includes a notification that the customers car is ready for pickup and instructions to deliver the notification to the customer.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 placing the customer on a wait list for a service requested by the customer when the service is not currently available.   
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein the business is a restaurant and the service is a request to be seated at a table. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 9 , further comprising:
 transmitting information to the server computer using the Internet session where the Information includes a notification that the requested service is not available and instructions to deliver the notification to the customer.   
     
     
         12 . A computer apparatus comprising:
 a communications controller in communication with the Internet where the communications controller is adapted to send data to and receive data from a server computer where the Internet provides at least a portion of the communications path used to send and receive the data and where the communications controller communicates with other devices without using the Internet;   a printer;   a memory wherein computer instructions are stored;   a processor in communication with the network controller, the printer and the memory, where when the processor executes the instructions, the processor performs functions that include;   implementing the method recited in  claim 1 .   
     
     
         13 . One or more non-transitory digital storage media storing instructions which, when executed by one or more computing devices, cause performance of the method recited in  claim 1 .