A queue management system is a vital component of a customer satisfaction strategy. Everyone living in Dubai or any other part of UAE has experienced a queue management system at any point in their life. The main objective of any queue management system is to improve customer experience and increase customer satisfaction. The simplest process of a digital queue management system is that a customer or visitor prints a ticket and then waits for their call and then gets served. However, it is not that simple at all. There are certain features that segregate one queue management system from another and similarly those features distinguish a top queue management system from an ordinary queue management system. The studies have suggested that an average customer start getting annoyed after only 13 minutes of waiting, which is why business are investing heavily in queuing solutions to reduce the wait time.
As the technology is advancing the market is witnessing major changes in the customer behavior and market trends. It is extremely important to keep up with those changing trends and demands from their customers. Earlier the queue management systems was only used to handle long lines, instead of waiting in lines customers can wait comfortably in the waiting area, but now things have changed, now a days the customers expect from the business to serve them instantly, no one wants to wait in the waiting area either. This is why the queue management systems has also evolved with tons of new features and technological solutions that help business to improve the customer journey and customer wait time. In this blog we will cover some important qualities and features of a queue management system that will make it the most efficient and most impactful.
Here are some qualities of top queue management system:
Virtual Queuing
Due to the COVID 19 pandemic the customer behavior, market trends and needs have been changed completely. Customer expects a bit quicker and contactless type of queuing experience from their brands. Whether it is a public office, government office, bank, hospital or any other place where the daily footfall is high, the customers expect the business and organizations to offer a better, quicker and safer queuing experience. This suddenly give rise to the virtual queuing and businesses who were not using or not needing any queue management system before are now using queue management systems. The virtual queuing enables a queue management system to manage customer flow through virtual waiting lines. It means that a customer can sign-up for the queue remotely and doesn’t required to wait in an actual physical queue or line. This also enables the customer to wait outside the premises and come only when their turn came. There are many different methods used for virtual queuing, the most common are remote sign-up through SMS, Calls, Email, Appointments, Smartphone Apps, QR Codes, etc.
The customer sign-up using any method and then they can either wait outside the premises or come at exactly the same time when their ticket number is being called. As the customer identifier or ticket has been issued prior to their arrival and their place is secured in the queue so the customers don’t have to wait physically in the line instead they can wait outside to minimize the contact and interaction with other people. The virtual queuing is not only give confidence to the customers and visitors but it literally completely remove the need of waiting in the waiting area or inside the premises, which means the customers and visitors can get served immediately after their arrival. It improves the customer experience and also maximize the employee efficiency which has double effect on the overall productivity of the branch and increase profitability.
Automatic Customer Journey Management
Although this is a basic feature of modern days queue management system in Dubai, UAE. But this feature has enhanced a lot in past few years. Any queue management system provides some level of customer journey automation, but a top queue management system should enables the management to configure the customer journey and to make them able to implement the new or temporary company policies instantaneously. This feature is very important in today’s queuing. As businesses often require to change their policy or to change the customer routes. It could be either due to a temporary scenario or a special occasion or for a certain need. But business often require to modify their queuing policies. A top queue management system should be very flexible and helpful for the management in dealing with such scenarios. The customer journey automation is also mandatory to minimize the customer wait time and to improve the customer flow.
The automatic customer journey feature enables the queue management system to automatically route the customers and visitors to their dedicated counters/server and agents. For example, usually a business is offering multiple services in a single branch having multiple counters. Even in some cases a single service delivery require a customer to go to several counters. Certain agents and servers are trained for certain services and some agents perform well for certain services. This is why in order to maximize the operational efficiency and to maintain the ultimate customer experience the business require a queue management system that can handle all these variables automatically.
Queue Management System Smartphone Apps
Smartphone apps have been integrated too deep within our society. In Dubai and all other emirates of UAE the smartphone apps are very popular. The government is stressing on the importance of going green and digitalization. There are tons of government services that are being offered through the smartphone apps. Another reason of smartphone apps getting popular is that in the entire UAE almost everyone owns a smartphone and have access to the internet. People love to spend time on their smartphone, in fact there are certain clusters of society who spend more time on their smartphones than on the laptops or traditional computers. Which makes them even more important for the marketers and business belongs to the service based industry. A queue management system smartphone app added value to both the customers and the management.
The queue management system smartphone apps enables the customer to sign-up remotely from their mobiles, it improves the virtual queuing and help management to minimize the wait time which enhances customer experience and improve customer journey. The smartphone applications can offer a lot of features which enhance customer experience and customer journey. The customers can book an appointment from the apps. The customer can search for the nearest branch, and also find data for those branches which help them planning their visit. The customer can learn about the busy branches, current queuing details and much more. The real-time updates, notifications and support for virtual queuing also add value to the customer journey and customer experience.
Dedicated Agent Dashboard
Dedicated agent dashboard is very helpful in improving employee efficiency and making service delivery process easier which also impact customer satisfaction and customer journey. The agent/server can monitor and control the queues from this dashboard. Each agent will have to login to their dashboard at the start of their shift, this way the queue management system will be able to identify the agent/server and then the system can collect stats, capture various data inputs, and measure KPIs (key performance indicators). The dashboard can capture different types of data such as the agent’s progress, how many customers are being served. How much time consumed for each service delivery, what is average time for a single service delivery. What services are delivered quickly and what services took longer. Comparison can be done. The services can be easily identified at which the agent/server is good and vice versa. This way the management can manage the agent’s position and their tasks to improve efficiency.
The agents can also utilize the dashboard to aid their service delivery process. The agent dashboard can offer a variety of standard and customized features which can be designed to aid the service delivery process. For example the customers data can be pushed to the agent dashboard easily or from the agent dashboard to customer repository or it can be linked to the centralized information center. This could save a lot of efforts which reduces the service delivery time, improve customer experience and increase employee efficiency. The agent/server dashboard can be completely customized to add features and functionalities that can facilitate the service delivery process and it also collect important statistical data which help the management in decision making and planning for the future strategies.
Real-time Monitoring and Remote Management
Any top queue management system must have this quality. The real-time monitoring and the remote management is very helpful for the management. The queue management system allows the top management at the head office to be able to access any or all connected branches. The head office can push new policies, extract data, assign new job roles for the staff and branch management and they can also control various other aspects of the queuing process. Which is very helpful for the head office and it also prevent any additional work and cost of manually implementing company policies and strategies to each location. In order to enable this feature the queue management system must have a dedicated server or server side application. This queue management system server connects with all branches and mostly all the computing and processing is done at the server. This enables remote monitoring for the head office as all the data and stats are being stored at the server which can be accessed from the head office.
This connectivity also enabled the remote management. The head office can remotely monitor and manage the entire organization from the head office. The head office management can access any branch at any time and monitor the live feeds from the queuing process. The head office can push new rules and policies to any branch or to the entire organization. The head office can extract statistical data, KPIs and they can generate reports from any branch. The real-time monitoring and remote management provides a great advantage to the top management. Everything can be accessed remotely which save a lot of time and efforts as well. If the head office has data from all the branches they can understand the trends, customer behavior, agent/server performance and much more with more clarity and accuracy.
Customer Feedback
Any queue management system these days is incomplete without customer feedback features. The Dubai and all other parts of UAE have a multi-cultural societies which comprises of people from each and every nationality and ethnicity. This is why the UAE market acts and behaves slightly differently and are considered to be more customer/consumer friendly too. The economy is growing rapidly, the competition is increasing day by day. Businesses are investing a lot in innovation and modernization, in fact businesses keep updating their IT infrastructure after a few years only. This makes things tougher for the marketer and the management. It is extremely important to understand your customers to ensure a sustainable and continuous growth. The customer satisfaction and customer retention are crucial for growth.
A Customer Feedback system is the only tool that can provide a very direct and unfiltered customer opinion. I think whoever is living in Dubai or any other part of UAE for some time must be familiar with the small touch screens, or tablets or kiosk placed next to the serving counters. Which ask the customers and visitors to provide their feedback. A top queue management system must have this quality. These days all modern queuing solutions comes with an in-built customer feedback module. Which enables the business to collect vital business intelligence. The customer feedback data is critical for improving your products and services, enhancing customer experience and customer journey. The business can also accurately measure several different KPIs with the customer feedback module. Which are very helpful for the management in making decisions and taking actions to improve customer interaction. The customer feedback also build trust among the brand and its customers and it improves business’s reputation.
Business Intelligence Gathering
Business intelligence is not a particular data, in fact it is a blend of several data feeds coming from various touch point throughout the entire customer journey. Any top level queue management system must gather and provide business intelligence in the form of actionable reports. This requires a very smart software engine with capabilities of data analytics and data processing. Collecting data is extremely important, but creating actionable reports from that data is also equally important. If a queue management system is collecting tons of data but failed to provide comprehensive and summary reports in an easy-to-understand formats, it could cause problems rather solutions. The top management or head office can rely on the business intelligence to form their future strategies and policies. The reports, stats, KPIs, system usage data and other indicators will help the management to identify the areas of improvements whether it is the customer journey, or agent/server, or product/service quality itself, the business should be able to easily identify and rectify the problems by relying on these reports and statistical data.
A good queue management system should be able to meet all those needs. There should be customizable reporting module, which allows the management to extract data and generate reports as per their needs, rather only daily, weekly or monthly reports. The data should also have to be presented in several visual formats which are easy to understand for the top management. These days we are also witnessing that modern queue management system allows intensive system integration and data synchronization with other enterprise tools and software. Which makes it easier for the management to prepare and compare data from various sources. Such features are very helpful or the management in taking actions, making new policies and identifying the areas of improvements to ensure ultimate customer experience.
Read More: Advancements of Queue Management System Expected in 2022
Conclusion
A queue management system have transformed into a powerful customer satisfaction solution instead of a simple customer flow management tool. Each business and organization have different goals and objectives but still the basic remains the same. Everyone wants to improve customer journey and customer experience to achieve higher customer retention and customer satisfaction rates which ensures steady growth and high profitability. A queue management system must have above mentioned features in order to help business and organizations to achieve their goals and objectives. Virtual queuing, customer journey and business process automation, integration with other enterprise solutions and business tools, customer feedback collection, real-time monitoring, remote management, reporting module, business intelligence collection and KPIs are the basic necessity of any modern day queuing solution. RSI Concepts is a leading queue management system provider in Dubai, UAE. If you need to improve your customer experience and customer journey, 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 with you.
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