Queue and waiting time management is a crucial part of the service-based industry. Businesses and organizations in Dubai and all across the UAE are eagerly seeking ways to improve their queue management and customer wait time management. Basically, the customer journey and customer experience are what will decide if a customer will do business with the brand or not. If a customer has a bad experience they will most probably avoid that brand, if they had a good experience they will prefer to deal with the same brand again and again. This is what is called customer retention. Customer retention is based on customer loyalty, customer loyalty heavily relies on the customer journey and customer experience. The customer journey and customer experience are heavily depending upon the queue and waiting time management. It might look like a long shot but it isn’t. These all factors have cascading effects and act like dominos, one’s fall leads to the fall of the next and eventually, the entire structure falls apart. That is the reason why queue and waiting time management is so important.
The cost is also an important factor, it reduces profitability. If businesses are adding up new counters and hiring more staff, it is easy to understand that this will have a cost and running expense also. If businesses are not adding more counters they will fail in reducing the wait time, as a result, the customer churn rate will increase, the customer retention will decrease and customer loyalty will decrease. On top of that, the business will lose its reputation. A negative brand identity is very bad, it affects everything. It directly impacts the cost of acquiring new customers and the businesses will end up investing a lot in the marketing and brand identity building efforts. However, a simple queue management system can save it all. The queue management system not only makes the queue and waiting time management easy but also has other benefits such as improving customer journey and experience, collecting customer feedback and business intelligence data, etc.
Here are some benefits of a queue management system and how it can help businesses and organizations in the queue and waiting time management:
Queue Management System Manages Customer Flow and Organizes Queues
The entire service-based industry in the world is investing a huge amount of hard-earned revenue and resources to improve customer experience and customer journey. From interior and lighting to wait for time and agent’s behavior everything contributes to the customer experience and customer journey. Businesses and organizations in Dubai and all around the UAE are eager to improve customer journeys and customer experiences. The wait time has a huge influence on customers’ experience. Several studies have shown that an average wait time threshold is 10 to 13 minutes only, which in most cases is even more than the service delivery process. Any time longer than that will start impacting customers negatively. As much as the waiting time increases from the threshold limit the customer experiences a decline. That is why the reduction in the wait time is the top priority. Obviously instant service delivery requires a huge number of active counters, which requires a large number of trained employees, and that cost is not realistic. The businesses should optimize the number of counters and the wait time to achieve a balance that can provide optimum customer waiting time and also ensures maximum profitability.
A queue management system is a very capable tool, it controls and manages the customer flow. The sign-up and customer flow are digitally controlled. There is no human factor involved. This makes the process very efficient and agile. The customers and visitors also don’t have many complaints. As the system is controlled by the computer so customers and visitors also tolerate much more. The well organizes customer flow reduces the wait time and also help the employees to focus on their primary tasks, which is service delivery and related jobs. This expedites the service delivery processes as well and further help to reduce the wait time.
Queue Management System Reduces the Actual Wait Time and the Perceived Wait Time
Another advantage of a queue management system is that it also help improving the ‘perceived wait time’, the perceived wait time is always longer than the actual wait time. For example, when a customer is sitting in the waiting area, they might think they are waiting for too long, however the actual time spent is not that long. This is something that involves human psyche. Our brain tend to perceive time slowly if waiting in a bored environment. A queue management system includes large digital signage screens. These screens can play multimedia content which can divert customers form waiting time. This improves customer engagements. Moreover the screens also display live queuing information and ongoing activates along with audio announcements, which also keep the user distracted, active and engaged and the perceived wait time get reduced. Thus the queue management system not only reduce the wait time but it also help improving the waiting experience.
Queue Management System Automates Customer Journey and Reduces Wait Time
The queue management system are very helpful in automating the customer journey and customer routing. Most often in Dubai and all around the UAE businesses are offering multiple services through multiple counters. There are two major factors that can improve customer flow and customer route, one is the smart load management for each counter, and the second is automatic customer journey and customer routing management. Each business has different methods and businesses practices, the queue management system helps implementing company policies easily. If a business has multiple branches the head-office can implement the company policy instantly throughout the entire network. The customer routing and load management could also be configured as per the company policies. Each employee works differently some are more capable some are less. Some perform better is busy hours some couldn’t. These all things impact the customer journey and customer wait time. In case of stepped services, where a single service delivery requires a customer to reach to several or at least more than one counter is a bit more difficult to manage manually, however with a queue management system the customer routes and journey can be managed automatically as per company’s policies. This saves a lot of time and accelerate the customer flow.
For example, a business have five counters with ten different services. The first two counters are only exclusive for the top two services and top two of the remaining services can be delivered by any counter and rest can be delivered through the three other counters. That may sounds like a very complex scenario but it isn’t. Usually businesses divide their counters and services to improve customer experience, employee efficiency and profitability. Let say the two agents out of the five are more trained and experienced so assigned to deliver complex services or for VIP or Premium customers. The remaining staff is sufficiently trained for all other services. If the customer journey and customer journey and customer routes are managed manually, it could be a big hustle for both the customers and the employees as well. This is where a queue management system significantly improves productivity and profitability. The entire process can be automated, the customer journey can be cut short, the wait time will be reduced and the employee performance will be increased. This will result in better resource management and due to automation only a limited amount of human resource will be needed which will increase the profitability.
Queue Management System Help Managing the Queues and Reducing Wait Time by Improving Employee Efficiency
The employee efficiency plays an important role in customer wait time. If your employees are efficient and proactive they will be able to work efficiently and they will also be able to deliver good quality of work which will increase customer happiness and customer satisfaction. Without a queue management system the employees will have to manage the queues and customer flow manually. They could easily get distracted from their primary tasks. They could easily get overloaded during the busy work hours. The employees will fail to perform at their maximum efficiency. Which will further increase the customer waiting time. There are other aspects too such as when queues are managed manually customers have too many complaints about the mismanaged queues, employees, line jumpers, etc. Customer could easily end up in wrong queues which will again create problems for both customers and the agents. Such things will keep the employees busy in managing and calming the customers and visitors, which will reduce their performance and efficiency. The employee will be exhausted during the initial few hours of their shift, which also impacts the customer experience and increase wait time.
With a digital queue management system the employees don’t have to worry about such things. They can easily focus on their primary tasks. The queues, customer flow, and the entire customer journey will be managed by the queue management system which itself reduces the wait time a lot. Moreover the employees will have more time to perform their pre-sale and post-sale tasks, which will reduce the service delivery time which results in less waiting time. Moreover when the employees work under a balanced workload they don’t stressed out and they remain more focus, sharp and active at their tasks. These factors not only increase employee efficiency but they also help improving the customer journey and customer waiting time.
Queue Management Systems Collect Business Intelligence Data
The queue management systems collect business intelligence data to identify the areas of improvements and factors which are impacting the queues and customer waiting time. The businesses intelligence is a collective data coming from various feeds and sources. The data is then processed and compiled up in actionable reports. On the bases of this data the businesses can easily identify the areas of improvements and the factors which are consuming the most wait time in the customer journey. This enables the businesses to setup and configure their queue management system and tune up their other policies and strategies to ensure the improved queue management, better customer flow, lower customer wait time and better customer experience. There are different types of business intelligence data. The three main sources of business intelligence data is the queue management system’s usage and other stats, employee KPIs and the customer feedbacks. The queue management system has ability to capture data from various points and various levels. It can accurately measure each customer’s journey, service delivery time, wait time and much more. The employee KPIs are very helpful in assessing and evaluating the employee performance. The customer feedback provide deeper understanding of the customer journey, their expectations, needs and on-going market trends.
Collectively these all various sources form the business intelligence. Which is processed by in-built software engine and tools. Later the data is extracted in the form of various reports. The queue management systems provide different types of reports meant for different audience. These reports and customer feedback help businesses to identify the areas of improvements. For example the queue management system pointed to a particular service which takes longer than usual time. The businesses can plan to modify the service delivery mechanisms or practices in order to make it faster. Let say an employee is very good at certain services and not so efficient at others, the business can identify this by using the KPIs, and then they can either plan training for that employee or make sure that he remain appointed on the services with good efficiency. Such things are helpful for businesses to plan for future strategies, make policies and take actions for better queue management and lower waiting time.
Conclusion
The queue and waiting time management is a most important aspect of customer journey and customer satisfaction. If the customers are not happy and satisfied with the service they have or their experience throughout the entire customer journey, they will immediately leave the business or organization. If they had a good experience they will stay and become a loyal customer. The loyal customers are a very precious asset of any business the entire business success can be based on the customer loyalty and customer retention. It is nine to twelve time more expensive to acquire a new customer comparing to selling to an existing customer. The queue management and waiting time dominates the entire customer experience and customer journey. No matter how good your services or products are if your business practices and service delivery methods are not good and customers are leaving unhappy and unsatisfied, they will eventually switch to others. A digital queue management system have completely revolutionized the queue and waiting time management.
A queue management system automate various aspects of the customer journey, it can effectively manages the queues without getting affected by the quantity of the incoming customers and visitors. It manages the customer routes and automatically control the customer journey. It effectively distribute customers among the relevant counters and reduce the workload of the employees. Collectively these all factors results in huge reduction in the customer waiting time and excellent queue management. Moreover the queue management system also collect crucial business intelligence data to evaluate and assess each and every customer touch point. The queue management system can also effectively manage the employee performance. This help the management to further take steps and make policies to ensure the smoothest customer journey and a satisfactory customer experience. RSI Concepts is a leading name in queue management system providers in Dubai, UAE. If you need help with your queue management or branch transformation and customer journey management, 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.
Check out this: Impact of a Queue Management Software on Staff Productivity