A queue management system is considered to be a necessity these days. As almost all sorts of industries are adopting it in Dubai and other parts of the UAE. Do businesses most often think what are the pros and cons of a queue management system? The purpose of this blog is to provide a detailed overview of all the advantages and disadvantages or limitations of a queue management system. Generally, a digital queuing solution is very beneficial for a business. Any queue management system is used to achieve two primary objectives, one is customer satisfaction and the other is to improve employee performance. Customer satisfaction and improved employee efficiency are important for building a positive brand image that attracts more customers and also improves conversion rates. Businesses can easily achieve their goals and increase their profitability by simply implementing a queue management system.
Here are the pros and cons of a queue management system:
Pros of a Queue Management System
There are several pros of a queue management system, such as:
1. Efficient Customer Flow Management
With the help of a queue management system businesses can easily manage and streamline their customer flow. The queues are well-organized, automatically controlled, no or very limited human intervention in managing the queues, no line jumpers, no disputes and troubles inside the waiting lines. The businesses had to keep a lot of staff to manually manage the queues and to cope with the problems occurring in manual lines. This was not causing troubles for the staff but such problems also affect the customer experience and delay in the customer journey. A queue management system can automatically manage all these things, there is no human intervention, so people don’t complain much about their positions in the queues, there are literally no disputes as everyone knows the lines are controlled by the computer program and not by a human being. This is why a queue management system can not only improve the customer experience and customer journey but it also reduces the workload on the employees, the business can manage massive queues with only a few staff members.
2. Reduced Wait Time
One of the biggest advantages of a queue management system is that it can significantly reduce the wait time of the customers and visitors. Several studies and various market researches have suggested that an ordinary customer or visitor can happily wait for 13 minutes, any time longer than that starts bothering them, if your customers get annoyed before even reaching the service counter, the chances are they will going to have an average or maybe bad experience with the agent too. No matter how hard the agent tries to satisfy them, if they had to wait for a long time, they will eventually end up leaving the premises unsatisfied and unhappy. So a reduction in wait time is extremely important to improve customer experience and customer journey. The queue management systems can easily reduce the wait time by a significant margin comparing to manual queuing.
3. Organize and Automate Customer Journey
A queue management system not only helps to reduce the wait time but also helps to organize and to automate various processes throughout the customer journey. Most businesses have various different services and different service delivery practices. Each business tries to make its customer journey unique, convenient, and easiest. All businesses have their own policies, priorities, and objectives. Some services are popular and some are not, some services require specially trained staff and so on. In some cases, a single service could take multiple counters to get the process done. All these situations make the customer journey complex and difficult to manage manually. However, with a queue management system businesses can program it as per their policies and the system will do the rest.
The queue management system can easily identify the required service during the signing-in process. Then it issues the ticket for the respective counter(s). The queue management system can also take the customers and visitors through the stepped service delivery process in which multiple counters are involved in a full-service delivery. The queue management system can also identify the priority customers and direct them to their dedicated counters. All this happens automatically and instantly. Moreover, the queuing systems can automatically reroute the customers to the vacant counters and to the counters with smaller queues. The management only has to configure the policy one time and the queue management system automates the process and handles the customer journey automatically. This not only makes the journey fast but also completely eliminates the errors and problems that are common in manual customer journey management.
4. Improve Employee Performance and Increase Service Quality
Without a queue management system, the most of the employee’s efforts are consumed by managing the customers and visitors. However, with a queuing solution, the customer flow and many other things can be automated and managed by the system, which leaves very little work for the agents/server. The employees can focus more on their primary tasks. This boosts employee performance and makes them able to serve more customers in a single shift. Above all, each employee can easily focus on serving the customers so the service quality also improved and the customers get a better experience. This is how the queue management system helps businesses in improving their employee performance.
As the customer journey and various touchpoints are being managed by the queue management system, automation makes the processes simpler and quicker. It also reduces the workload of the employees and the employees focus more on serving the customers. Not only that, with the less wait time, automation and well-organized queue management the employee also got a good experience and when they reached to the counter they are not stressed or annoyed, this let the agent communicate well with the customers and visitors. Which also improves the service quality. The customers who are calm and happy are much easier to satisfy than the customers who reached the counter after hours of wait and going through a bad wait time experience.
5. Reduce Cost, Increase Customer Loyalty and Increase Profitability
A queue management system is far cheaper than having employees managing customer flow manually. The queuing solution also reduces the workload of the agents/server which means a single agent or server can serve more customers in a single day, which reduces the number of required agents/server and allow the business to cut the cost. Excellent customer journey management and great customer experience ensure customer satisfaction. A happy customer tends to be more loyal than an unhappy customer. Some of our customers have witnessed a huge rise in customer loyalty and returning customers after deploying a queue management system in Dubai, UAE. A happy customer will be more loyal to the brand. The customer loyalty help business to improve customer retention. And it directly impacts growth and revenue.
If a business has a stable foundation of loyal clientele, they can expect higher conversion rates too. Which ensures steady growth. The happy customers not only give repeated business but also help brands in building a positive brand identity. If a customer has a great queuing experience they will tell their friend, family, and colleagues, and become brand advocates which is great for brand image building. If a brand has a positive brand identity, it tends to attract more new customers and its marketing efforts also return good results only due to its positive image and good brand identity. A queue management system plays a vital role in improving customer happiness and customer satisfaction.
Cons of a Queue Management System
There are only a few cons of a queue management system, such as:
1. High Initial Investment
The initial investment is relatively higher. That is also a big reason why businesses are so skeptical when making a decision on a queue management system. As the queue management system contains several hardware components and several software features, which increases the project cost. It is usually the hardware that costs you more. There are multiple digital signage, interactive kiosk or ticket dispensing machines, customer announcement system, counter plates or counter displays, networks, etc. These all hardware components are just a bit expensive but are long-lasting and comes with a longer lifecycle and warrantees.
2. Regular Maintenance
As there are so many hardware components involved so regular maintenance is mandatory. It is a common practice in Dubai and all over the UAE that whoever is acquiring a queue management system also sign-up for an annual maintenance contract. This also impacts the overall cost. Usually, regular maintenance is required to solve network-related problems or less often the ticket dispensing machine or interactive kiosk requires maintenance. It also requires regular paper role filling at which it prints tickets. That is why regular maintenance is required.
3. Local Hosting or Online Hosting /Cloud
As the queue management system comes with queue management software too. Which has to be hosted on a server. Usually, businesses prefer to host the software in their on-premises data centers, which is costly and requires regular maintenance and management too. In the case of online hosting or cloud-based solutions, the business will have to sign-up for the annual maintenance services. Which also increases the overall cost of a queuing solution. Either way, additional cost, and regular maintenance are required.
4. Expensive Software System Integration
Most of the time the queue management software integration with other corporate tools and enterprise solutions is not that costly. But in some cases where customization is required, the businesses might have to pay extra to all the parties involved. For example, if a particular feature is needed with the queue management system that requires integration with the ERP or Customer Loyalty Program, then either a middleware is built to synchronize both the systems or modifications are required at both ends. Either way, the business will have to bear additional costs for the system integration.
5. Limited & Expensive Hardware Customization/Upgrade
Although the software customization and upgrade is a bit less costly the hardware upgrade, customization or modification is a bit expensive. There are only a limited number of hardware devices that can be integrated into the system to build useful functionalities. For example, if your sign-up process needs the customer or visitor to scan their Emirates ID card, and later you realize that rather than Emirates ID card or even along with that you also need Facial Recognition. In order to build this feature, the interactive kiosk must have to be modified or customized. Once a kiosk design is built it is very hard to customize it, in most cases, the businesses end up buying altogether a new kiosk model. Which not only increases the cost but also wastes the older kiosks. That is why hardware customization and upgrades are difficult and expensive.
Conclusion
When we talk about the pros and cons of a queue management system we should think about the long-term return over the investments rather than just the initial cost and expense. A queue management system’s initial cost is a bit higher but in long term the benefits are staggering. With the improved customer experience and quicker customer journey with improved service quality and boosted employee performance, the business can achieve a great competitive edge over their competitors. So, I would suggest rather than considering the short-term expense the business should focus on the long-term goals and profitability that is only possible with a queue management system. The queue management system helps businesses in improving customer loyalty and customer retention, which leads to positive brand identity. The positive brand image attracts more customers and improves the conversion rates. So in longer terms, a queue management system can offer a great ROI. RSI Concepts is a leading Queue Management System brand, we offer very cost-effective customized queuing solutions. Feel free to reach us out through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch.
Check out this: Difference in Wired and Wireless Queue Management System