Restaurant customers appreciate the convenience of being able to make restaurant reservations online, but they also like the personal touch of telephone reservations. This tradeoff between efficiency and service perceptions points to a strategy of offering reservations via both methods. Emphasizing the convenience of online reservations may encourage customers to use the website, and that will give restaurant operators more information about their customers. Whether a restaurant uses a third-party reservation service or builds its own website, one key to ensuring a successful reservations process is to make the electronic process as straightforward as possible.