Queue Management System Archives - Page 3 of 9 - RSI Concepts - Top IT Solution Provider Company in Dubai, UAE

July 24, 2023

Redefining Queue Management: How to Enhance the Customer Experience

For any business the customer satisfaction is the prime goal, it assures long term success, stability and growth. Businesses operating in service sector understand the importance of customer flow optimization and customer journey management. Especially in Dubai and anywhere in UAE the markets are very competitive, the customers have too many options available and people usually tend to switch after getting even only a single bad experience. That is why queue management is crucial for a business’s success. Long queues, poorly managed waiting lines and crowded lobbies are a great dissatisfaction for the customers, which not only raise customer churn but also harm business’s brand image and reputation.

There are several challenges that customer facing environment have, one of the biggest is delay in service and long waiting time, furthermore the management of customer service center is also complicated and collectively everything impacts the customer experience. A queue management system not only reduce wait time it also streamline customer flow, provide real-time monitoring and it is very helpful for the management and staff which results in higher efficiency and raise customer satisfaction.

Redefining Queue Management: How to Enhance the Customer Experience

What is a Modern Queue Management System?

A modern queue management system is a digital solution which includes both software and hardware components. The software is designed with AI based smart technologies which enables it to collect data in real-time, take decisions at its own to improve customer flow and it improves management. A queue management system allow to monitor, track and improve customer movement within the premises and help improving customer waiting experience and customer journey. It automates several queuing processes and capture business intelligence data from each and every customer touch point. This ability allows it to take decisions at its own to ensure a smoother customer flow.

Queue management system helps both service agents and the management to effectively improve the queuing process. It not only eliminates the inefficient and manual queuing practices but it also collects valuable business intelligence data insights which can be integrated in decision making and strategy building processes to further improve the customer flow management policy and practices. In this blog we will discuss how a modern queue management system can greatly enhance customer experience to achieve higher satisfaction.

What is a Modern Queue Management System?

Customer Experience: Long Wait Time

Long wait time has the most impact on the customer experience than anything else. No matter how good your office or facility is, how well your staff is trained, if your customers will have to face long wait time they will eventually end up unhappy. According to several studies on an average a customer could tolerate around 9 minutes of wait time, and any minute adding to that will have toll on customer experience, so much so that a time will come when your customers will become annoyed enough that they will decide to leave without even getting the service.

This is called customer churn and keeping it at the lowest possible value is crucial for your business’s success. Longer wait time doesn’t only bother your customers but there is a phenomenon known as perceived wait time, which even worsen the conditions for both businesses and customers. The perceived wait time is the wait time our brain perceived instead of tracking the real-time. The perceived time is always higher than the actual time, for example, your customers have waited for let say 20 minutes however their mind perceive it longer than that maybe 30 or even 40 minutes.

Longer wait time means even longer perceived wait time which results in bad customer experience and cause frustration. That is why it is important to control, reduce and efficiently manage both wait times. A modern queue management system not only help minimizing the wait time but it also offer features which help reducing the perceived wait time’s impact by increasing customer engagements. There is another psychological phenomenon into play which is the fear of unknown, if the customers have no clue of how long they will have to wait this will add to their fear and they think they might have to wait for long period of time.

However, a queue management systems comes with a powerful software tools which is built on smart AI and advanced data processing algorithms. These features enable queue management system to monitor the live queuing situation, consider the historical data and measure the ongoing performance on the service counters and estimate the remaining time to service. Hence when the customers are given their token they are also provided with estimated time to their turn.

When the customer know how long they will have to wait, they tend to remain calm. Furthermore there are several other features which help improving customers’ waiting experience. A modern queue management system comes with a smart customer calling module. The modern queue management systems are integrated with digital signage displays and a multi-lingual audio calling system. The digital signage keep displaying the current token number at service counters, upcoming tokens and few more details which keep customers distracted from the waiting and minimize the impact of waiting.

Furthermore the queue management system can automatically make audio announcement where it calls token number and the service counter allotted to that token number, usually the customer call is made in two or three languages followed by a short music tone. The digital signage screens are also not only used to display queuing information, but a modern queue management system comes with in-built digital signage management module as well. Which allow businesses to run marketing or promotional videos or any other entertaining content on the large displays along with the queuing information.

The digital signage and speakers are installed at strategic locations with aim of ensuring every customer at any place in the waiting area can view the signage or listen to the audio announcement. All these features help greatly reduce the waiting stress and improve customers’ waiting experience.

When the customer know how long they will have to wait, they tend to remain calm. — When the customer know how long they will have to wait, they tend to remain calm

Customer Experience: Quick Service Delivery

Let us just admit whenever we have to face a situation where we have to wait for some time in a queue or in waiting area, in such situation when we reach to the service counter we want to get the service as quickly as possible and leave. For any customer facing environment it is crucial to offer a quality service and in a timely manner. When the customers already waited for some time, they are in hurry and want to leave as quickly as possible. A modern queue management system help businesses minimize the service delivery time by offering specialized features to automatically manage the customer journey and to help the service staff in their tasks.

A modern queue management system offers a dedicated dashboard for the service agents, it can integrate with central information center and other third-party tools to enable quick availability of the data and information for the service agents, and it monitors employee KPIs. All these features help reducing the service delivery time and ensure a smooth customer flow. A queue management system automates several customer journey steps, and internal processes which means the staff doesn’t have to worry about any such thing, in fact they can easily focus on their primary tasks which results in quicker service delivery as well as improved service quality.

For any customer facing environment it is crucial to offer a quality service and in a timely manner

Furthermore the queue management system also allow customers to sign-in using self-service ticket dispensing kiosk. Usually the ticket dispensing kiosk as the customers about what service they need this help the queue management system to route the customer to the right service counter and put them in the right queue. Most of the time customers end-up in the wrong queue which could cause a lot of problems and result in delays in service delivery. On top of that each business have its own queuing policies. Businesses always offer multiple services and apart form that there are different customer groups which are prioritized differently, for example, the VIP customers, people with special needs, elderly people, etc.

All these customers are expecting a different treatment from the business, which is defined in the queuing policy. A modern queue management system help businesses effectively implement their queuing policies and provide better monitoring and control over customer flow. Some businesses also offer stepped services which means a customer is required to visit multiple or more than one service counter in order to get a complete service. All these variables can make queuing very complex for both businesses and customers and cause unnecessary delays in service delivery.

A queue management system automates several customer journey steps, and internal processes

Customer Experience: Better Service Quality

The service quality or the quality of the interaction a customer have with the service agent can greatly influence their opinion about your business. It is essential to ensure a customer have a happy and satisfactory experience with your service staff. A queue management system help reducing the workload of the service staff. With manual queuing the staff regularly have to engage in queue management tasks, which distract them from their primary tasks and result in poor quality service and more customer complaints. With the queue management system the entire queuing process is autonomous which means the service staff have more time to focus on their primary tasks, this increase their performance which improve service quality.

Furthermore the queue management system also help service agents with their several other tasks which also result in quicker and better service delivery. The modern queue management system comes with advance employee performance monitoring tools which also help management track and monitor employee performance and collect valuable data which support HR decisions and help improving the workforce. All these features collectively help management improve the service quality and consequently the customer experience.

It is essential to ensure a customer have a happy and satisfactory experience with your service staff

Customer Experience: Business Intelligence Data

Data plays a crucial role in the success of any modern business, majorly due to the digital advancements, rise of online channels and customer preferences, the businesses are compelled to adopt to modern IT infrastructure in order to stay relevant and competitive. A modern queue management system can produce a wealth of highly accurate and valuable business intelligence data which can help businesses refine the customer experience by acquiring insight to customer behavior, detecting pain points and highlighting the areas of improvements. The business intelligence data covers a wide spectrum insight and information such as queue management system usage stats, customer preferences, customer footfall analytical data, employee performance data, and even the customer feedback data.

The business intelligence data is collected autonomously and available in form of interactive reports. The management can customize these reports to align them with their goals and strategies. The business intelligence data can also be synchronized with central information center or any other third-party system via easy integration. When management have accurate data and insight they can make informed decisions. It also help evaluating business strategies, processes and practices and help businesses to make improvements which results in better operational performance and higher customer satisfaction.

Business Intelligence Data plays a crucial role in the success of any modern business

Conclusion

Queue management system offer a variety of features and tools which help management improve the customer experience, optimize the operational cost, improve employee performance and achieve higher profitability. A good customer experience is crucial for a business to build a good brand image. The competition is tough in Dubai and other parts of UAE, businesses proactively improve their offerings to delight their customers. The customers are also very demanding and the market trends are subjected to subtle and monumental changes. It could be very difficult for a business to keep up with these changes without having right tools in their arsenal.

A queue management system is the perfect companion for any customer facing environment. It help reducing the wait time, have positive impact on employee performance, and it significantly improves the customer experience. A queue management system offers a centralized management mechanisms which enables businesses to monitor all connected branches in real-time and make sure right actions are taken and in timely manners to avoid any disruption or unwanted delay in customer flow. In this blog we have discussed how a modern queue management system can help businesses enhance the customer experience and leverage the technology to achieve their long term goals and success.

If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you implementing a tailor-made queue management system solution for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

July 12, 2023

Best Features of a Digital Queue Management System for Banks

Banks offer crucial financial services for individuals and businesses which are essential for our modern societies. If you are living in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi or anywhere else in UAE, you must have visited a bank either for account opening or for business purposes. If you recall your last interaction with a bank, how was your experience at the branch? I am sure it was not as pleasing as it should be. The biggest problems at banks is the large customer influx, a customer might have to wait for 30 to 45 minutes for a service which can be delivered in 5 minutes.

Obviously your appointment at bank is not something which you should expect to be enjoyable or entertaining but at least it should be comfortable, convenient and friction-less. This means that there are still some flaws and problems with the banking sector which are impacting customer experience. The average wait time for a typical bank service is around 20 minutes or in some cases even more than that, which cause stress and frustration. A digital queue management system solve all those problems and it also helps improving customer experience.

Best Features of a Digital Queue Management System for Banks

What is a Digital Queue Management System?

A queue management system is a combination of tools and strategy to improve customer flow and maximize the performance of the customer service centers. The early form of queue management systems was first-come-first-serve based waiting line. Then businesses started sorting them in multiple waiting lines. Later on technology is introduced to the queuing systems. The digital queue management system is the latest form of customer flow management systems.

A digital queue management system also consists of some digital tools (software and hardware) and a queuing strategy which help banks to significantly improve the customer experience, maximize their branch productivity and profitability and it also help improving staff performance. A digital queue management system also help businesses meet the ever-increasing customer expectations and it also collects valuable business intelligence data which is very helpful for businesses.

What is a Digital Queue Management System?

Here are the key features of a digital queue management system for a bank:

Digital Queue Management System: Reduction in Customer Wait Time

Customer wait time is one of the major cause of customer dissatisfaction. A digital queue management system is a very capable tool which can greatly reduce customer wait time and it also help improving customers’ waiting experience. Customers can sign-in using multiple methods which makes it very easy and convenience. Once customers are singed-in they are issued a ticket number which is their position in the queue. The customers are allowed to wait freely either in the waiting areas or even outside of the bank premises. The queue management system can also communicate with customers using SMS or WhatsApp or any other channel.

It sends them live queuing information, alerts and notifications which prevent customers from missing out their turn in the queue. Furthermore the digital queue management system also have a digital signage screen, usually more than one screens are placed on strategic locations to ensure every customers can easily view information on these screens. Along with queuing information, multimedia content can also be played which help diverting customer’s focus form waiting time. The frequent audio announcements also keep customer engaged and reduce the stress of waiting.

Digital Queue Management System: Reduction in Customer Wait Time

Digital Queue Management System: Customer Journey Transformation

A digital queue management system has an AI (artificial intelligence) based very powerful software engine which make it more effective and efficient. A digital queue management system is a customer journey transformation tool. It can enhance customer’s entire visit even from pre-arrival to post-service activities, a digital queue management system effectively improves the entire customer journey. Furthermore a digital queue management system is capable of collecting customer behavioral, statistical and performance data which enables it to take instant decisions on the bases of real-time queuing situation.

A typical bank have multiple services which they are offering at their branches, some service counters are exclusive for certain services some are for general services and furthermore there are also customer classifications and priority levels that the bank has to accommodate. It means that the bank has a very complex queuing strategy. A digital queue management system not only help banks implement their strategy but it also improving it. It can automatically route customers to the right service counter and as per their priority level or any other parameter that is applicable it manages the entire customer journey and ensure maximum efficiency, smooth customer flow and less wait time.

Digital Queue Management System: Customer Journey Transformation

Digital Queue Management System: Boost Branch Efficiency

A digital queue management system is not just designed to reduce the customer wait time. It is a very powerful tool which can help improving several processes and have huge impact on the overall efficiency and performance of the entire bank branch. The digital queue management system automates several processes and customer journey steps. For example, the customer sing-in is completely automated, customers can utilize the interactive kiosk to sign-in and get the token number or they can utilize any supported virtual channel to sign-in and get a digital token or e-ticket. Furthermore everyone is served only at their turn, there is no chance of staff giving importance to any customer, this not only help improving the customer flow but it also help gaining customer trust.

Furthermore there are no disputes, line jumping or any such problem that is associated with manual queuing. This means that the customer flow is entirely managed by the queue management system and the staff doesn’t have to involve at any stage. This not only speed up everything but it also help reducing the employees’ workload. When the staff works under balanced workload they tend to perform well and deliver high-quality service which improve branch performance. The employee have more time to focus on their primary tasks and they don’t have to worry about queuing problems which save a lot of time and also help reducing the service delivery time and resultantly customer wait time. All these improvements help boosting branch efficiency, employee performance, reduce human resource cost and ensure satisfactory service delivery.

Digital Queue Management System: Boost Branch Efficiency

Digital Queue Management System: Collects Business Intelligence Data

A digital queue management system is capable of collecting highly valuable business intelligence data from each and every customer touch point throughout the customer journey. Since the entire customer interaction digitally managed, collecting statistical data is much easier. For example, the queue management system can provide comprehensive insight to the customer flow such as which services most customer are choosing, what is average customer wait time, what is average service time and which employee is performing better and at which stage the customers are waiting longer than expected, etc.

A digital queue management system is also capable of collecting customers’ behavioral data and compile it in form of easy-to-understand reports which help management understand customer behavior trend, performance trends, footfall trends and many more useful insights. A digital queue management system can collects a wealth of business intelligence data which can be very useful in decision making processes and help management evaluate their queuing strategy, customer journey and various other processes that can directly impact the customer experience. Furthermore a digital queue management system can also facilitate customer feedback collection and help banks collecting valuable customer feedback.

Digital Queue Management System: Collects Business Intelligence Data

Conclusion

Banks offer most important financial services which are integral for our society and businesses to work. Whether you visit a bank in individual capacity or for your business, visit to a bank is inevitable. Banks also know that very well, hence they are always investing in innovative solutions and technologies to ensure their customers and visitors have an excellent customer experience. The overall UAE market in general is very dynamic, vibrant and versatile, for customers there are so many options to choose from. This is what makes customer satisfaction crucial for banks. If a bank wants to obtain customer loyalty then they must have to level up their game at customer experience and customer service.

A digital queue management system is a perfect companion for banks who want to improve their customer experience. It help banks automate several customer journey processes and improve employees’ performance without compromising the customer satisfaction. In fact queue management systems are known for delivering highest customer satisfaction in all customer-facing environments. In this blog we discussed what a queue management system is and what features it offer which can help banks achieve maximum productivity, performance and customer satisfaction.

If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to transform your bank branch with our customized queue management system solution, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

June 9, 2023

Why Every Business Should Invest in a Queue Management System?

The service sector knows very well the importance of customer experience. Businesses in Dubai or anywhere in UAE understand the importance of customer satisfaction. The UAE is a very competitive market and the customers simply have too many choices, which is why they are also very demanding. However, it is crucial for a business to ensure customer satisfaction and offer excellent services at their service center. A good customer experience not just make your customer happy but it also increases their loyalty and improve the brand image. A good brand image always attract more customers and vice versa.

That is why it is absolutely essential for a business to offer a great customer experience at their customer service centers. Businesses in Dubai and anywhere in UAE are investing heavily in customer satisfaction solutions. Regardless of industry a queue management system is the perfect companion for a modern day customer service centers. Businesses can find industry specific solutions as well as fully customized queue management systems which are exclusively designed to meet the very specific needs of the business.

What is a Queue Management System?

By definition a queue management system is a tool which is used to manage the customer flow and queues in the customer facing environments. The queuing theory is the learning and understanding of the line formation and customer flow. Businesses were managing queues since long time ago, even before the technological revolution and internet. Earlier businesses were managing footfall by forming waiting lines which worked on first come first serve bases. Later on businesses started issuing token numbers manually in form of small paper piece or tags, which have greatly improved customer flow and allow businesses to serve customers in different priority groups, and also enable them to segregate customers on the bases of services they need.

However, things have changed and the internet and IT technologies have evolved. Businesses then started deploying digital queue management systems. A digital queue management system is based on a software program and some hardware components. The modern digital queue management systems greatly improved the management abilities, control and performance of the queuing which also had a great impact on customer happiness and raise customer satisfaction. Moreover the Arabic queue management systems are also very successful in UAE and other regions of GCC.

Why Businesses should Deploy Queue Management Systems?

There are many reasons to deploy a queue management system. Every business who serves its customers at their offices, customer service centers or at their premises, need a mechanisms to manage footfall and ensure a frictionless customer journey. The customer journey is impacts customer happiness which is essential to attain customer loyalty and improve brand image. In this blog we will enlist key advantages of investing in a queue management system and how it benefits businesses.

Queue Management System Reduces Customer Wait Time

The customer wait time is the most crucial and significant factor in managing customer experience. Long wait time results in bad customer experience and unhappy customers. Only happy and satisfied customers will contribute to your business growth. Happy customers become loyal and loyal customers tend to be a good brand advocate who help you improve your brand image and attract more customers. On an average a 12 minutes wait time have least impact on customer happiness, more time added and your customers will become more unhappy and eventually they will become annoyed and angry which will not only ruin the customer experience but will also cause increase in customer churn and could badly impact your business’s reputation.

A queue management system digitalize the queuing process and digitalization drives automation which can greatly improve efficiency and reduce customer wait time. It also help improving employee efficiency and eliminate common queuing problems which results in less wait time and better management. Less wait time means happy customers and happy customers mean repeated business which will help you grow and increase profitability.

Queue Management System Improves Customer Experience

Queue Management System not only reduce customer wait time but it is very capable of improving the entire customer experience. Usually customers are welcomed with a self-service interactive ticket dispensing kiosk which allow them to choose the service they need or sign-in and get a ticket number. The customers can wait comfortably in the designated areas or they can go out to spend the wait time as they want, this allow them to sign-up for virtual queues, hence the customers doesn’t need to stand in long physical waiting lines. Furthermore the wait time is also a complex phenomenon, there is one actual wait time and there is one perceived wait time. The perceived wait time is always higher than the actual, it is our brain who tricked us in believing that more time has passed than what have actually passed.

The queue management system give customers more freedom and allow them to wait outside and keep them updated with regular alerts and notification such as SMS or WhatsApp, etc. The queue management system also have in-built announcement and customer calling system which keep customers distracted from waiting, it also have a digital signage which displays live queuing information and it also plays multimedia content or promotional material which keep customers distracted from the waiting time and help reducing their perceived wait time. These features significantly improve your customers’ waiting experience and raise their satisfaction.

Queue Management System Improves Employee Performance

The queue management systems also helps improving employee performance. It offers a comprehensive performance monitoring framework having multiple KPIs to monitor and evaluate employee performance. These KPIs help businesses to enhance their resource management strategies and are also very useful for the HR department. The HR can extract employee performance data to improve their training programs and take several HR decisions based on the employee performance data which help businesses improve their productivity in longer run. Furthermore the queue management system can automate several customer journey processes and digitalize several interactions which helps automating many tasks which are previously done by the service staff.

An effective queue management system can significantly reduce the workload of the employee which results in better performance. When employee works under balanced workload their satisfaction rises which raise their morals and have long term impact on employee performance and also enhance the quality of their work. The queue management system can also automatically reroute the customers based on the current customer flow at each counter to minimize the customer wait time which also help balancing the workload and enhance employee performance.

Queue Management System Reduces Cost

A queue management system is a great companion for your business to optimize the operational cost while boosting the performance and productivity. As I have mentioned above a queue management system can greatly improve customer flow and minimize the burden of the staff which results in a productive environment and it ensures high quality services for the customers. Furthermore the queue management system automates several queuing processes. The digitalization and automation doesn’t require any staff assistance at most of the touchpoints which means the overall need of human resource decreases. Businesses can invest in queue management system and minimize the need of human resource which can significantly reduce the operational cost without effecting the productivity in fact the queue management system can greatly improve efficiency.

The initial cost of the queue management system is also quite reasonable, as the technology used to build queue management systems are widely available. A queue management system consists of two parts, the software and hardware. Both software and hardware works independently and doesn’t require regular maintenance, which means the maintenance cost is also very low. The improved employee efficiency, decreased human resource need, and low-cost deployment of the system results in high ROI and help businesses minimize the per-service and overall operational cost.

Queue Management System Collects Business Intelligence Data

A queue management system is a digital tool which have a very powerful AI based software with smart algorithms and great capabilities of collecting business intelligence data. The business intelligence data includes customer behavioral data, their interaction at each touch point, system’s statistical and analytical data and various other insight which help businesses understand customer needs, demands, liking/disliking, market trends, staff performance and customer feedback. A digital queue management system also offers in-built analytical tools which help businesses extract actionable reports from the collected data. These reports can be included in the decision making process as well as these can be shared automatically as per set frequency.

The management can easily analyze the performance of each branch using these reports and on top of that customized reports can also be generated as per the needs of the management. The staff performance data is very useful for the resource planning and management and the HR can also use this data for several HR decisions. Queue management system can also be used to collect valuable customer feedback data which can be collected using on-premises tablets, touch screen or interactive kiosks and the queue management system can also integrate multiple channels such as SMS, Emails, WhatsApp, mobile apps, websites and many more. The business intelligence data help businesses improve processes, reduce cost and identify the areas of improvement which increase profitability and productivity in the long run.

How Queue Management System Improves Business

When a business deploy a queue management system it equally benefits all relevant parties. Whether it is customers, service staff, managers or senior management/head office everyone get several benefits. Here is a quick overview of benefits a queue management system offer for different stakeholders:

Queue Management System Benefits for Customers

Customer will have better waiting experience
More freedom and convenience during wait time
Less wait time and satisfactory customer service
Better communication, real-time updates and alerts
Virtual queuing features and appointment booking facility

Queue Management System Benefits for Service Agents

Balanced workload and low pressure environment
Get help and simplify service delivery process
More control and better customer flow management
Better performance, higher employee satisfaction

Queue Management System Benefits for Managers

Digitalization and automation improve administration
Digital controls help managers effectively control the customer flow
Analytical and performance data help managers make good decisions
Automatic alerts and notifications keep managers up-to-date
Advanced features help implementing company policy

Queue Management System Benefits for Head-Office

Enable head-office to get real-time updates from all branches
Improve monitoring and control over all connected branches
Help head-office to collect data and make reports from all branches
Help head-office to remotely implement their policy over all or selected branches

Conclusion

For businesses it is extremely important to ensure their customers are getting satisfactory experience at all their branches and outlets. The customer satisfaction is extremely crucial for your business’s success. Happy and satisfied customers tend to be loyal to the brand and they also help building a positive image with their feedbacks, reviews, word of mouth, social media and other online endorsements. For any business who is offering on-premises services whether it is from retail, finance, banking, healthcare, education, or any other service-based industry even the government offices and service centers also require a proactive queue management strategy which is impossible without implementing a digital queue management system.

In this blog we have covered the advantages of implementing a queue management system for your business and the benefits it offers for key players and stakeholders. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design and customized and highly cost-effective queue management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

May 4, 2023

Key Reasons Why Queue Management Systems are Essential for Customer Loyalty?

Any business’s success can be measured by measuring the customer satisfaction and customer happiness. The customer satisfaction help gaining customers’ trust and make them loyal to the brand. The loyal customers always contribute most to the success of any business. According to several studies it is almost 5 to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer then selling to an existing customer. Imagine how much customer loyalty can reduce your marketing and communication cost.

The loyal customers had already have experience with your business, their expectations are pretty clear, they are familiar with your business practices and methodologies, they are most likely to make multiple purchases directly from your business without ever reaching out to your competitors or doing any market research. It means if you have a huge pool of loyal customers, you are most likely to get repeated sales from them. When a business start establishing a loyal customer base it can sustain growth and move forward towards its broader vision.

The customer experience and customer satisfaction can be significantly improved by implementing modern queuing strategies such as implementing a modern digital queue management system at your customer-facing environments. When you will start treating your customers in a better way and when you start offering them more convenience and comfort, they will start liking you as a brand and eventually you can become their first-choice. That is how the customer satisfaction and customer happiness contributes to attaining customer loyalty. In this blog we will discuss how a queue management system help improving customer experience and contributes in increasing customer loyalty.

Queue Management System Reduces the Customer Wait Time

The customer wait time plays a crucial role in customer happiness and customer satisfaction. Whenever we imaging a customer service center, a public office, a government office, airports, shopping stores or any such place, the long lines and waiting queues are the common sighting at such places. Studies have shown that on an average a customer can wait from somewhere 9 to 12 minutes, and wait time any longer than that could start impacting customer’s experience and cause frustration, stress and unhappiness.

The queue management system is a highly effective solution to that problem. It help streamlining the customer flow, manages queues and waiting line automatically, and the queue management system helps in improving the queuing strategy and method. A typical queue management system consists of a highly powerful AI (artificial intelligence) based smart software engine, coupled with several hardware devices, such as interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk, audio-visual announcement system and digital signage displays, etc.

The smart queue management software is capable of collecting and analyzing queuing data in real-time and the AI based smart algorithms enable it to take decisions on the bases of current queuing data, historical data, and system configurations. The biggest advantage of implementing a queue management system is that it completely remove the human factor from various touch points of customer journey and make it automatic which not only save time but also prevent several problems that are common in manual queuing. The customer interaction begins with customer being welcomed with an intuitive multi-lingual interactive self-service kiosk.

Business can ask questions to categorize customers based on their needs, this will further improve the queuing process. Customers are given with printed ticket or digital ticket bearing their number/position in the queue. Then the customers are free to wait in the designated waiting areas and doesn’t need to stand in long waiting line. This feature can significantly improve customer experience. Furthermore the digital signage keep displaying the queuing information and it also plays multimedia content and other engaging content which keep customers distracted from the wait time.

The queue management system automatically puts customers in the appropriate queue and based on the footfall, current queuing status and various other factors it tries to put customers in the fast moving lines, and it also balance the workload of the service agent which further expedite the customer journey and reduce the wait time. With the manual queuing the wait time is higher, the customers have to wait in long boring waiting lines, which ruin their experience. However, with the digital queue management system all these problems are avoided which result in significant reduction in actual wait time.

All those distractions caused by the multimedia content, frequent audio announcements and the real-time updating queuing data on the signage screens, keep your customers distracted from the wait time. This way the perceived wait time is also reduced. The perceived wait time and the actual wait time are the leading cause of customer unhappiness. A queue management system help reducing and optimizing the wait time and results in higher customer satisfaction and happiness which contributes to increasing customer loyalty.

Queue Management System Improves Employee Performance

The customer experience is a very delicate and sensitive matter, even very small looking things can have huge impact on it. Same is the case with the employee performance. The queue management system is a digital tool it can effectively track and monitor employee performance. The queue management system measures several performance metrics and KPIs. For example, how many customers are served by a service agent in a shift, what was the average time of service to each customer, how much time the service agent took for breaks, etc. All such information help management focus on the right directions to improve employee performance and identify the issues that may causing poor performance.

Furthermore with the help of a digital queue management system businesses can avoid several problems. In the manual queues the service agents will also have to listen to customers’ complaints, they will have to solve disputes, sometimes customers showed up in wrong queues, then there are line jumpers and several other such problems which keep service agents distracted from their work. However, with the queue management system all these problems vanished and the service agents can easily focus on their primary tasks and also work under balanced workload which significantly improve their efficiency, performance and satisfaction. A happy service agent can serve your customer better and provide them a happy and satisfied experience.

Queue Management System Offers Virtual Queuing

The virtual queuing is not a new phenomenon, however, it got fame in past few years. The virtual queuing is basically the next step of the digital queuing. The virtual queue management system offers more integrated communication and convenience to the customers which results in much better experience and significantly reduced wait time. With the help of virtual queuing features the business can offer its customers multiple mobile communication channels and virtual tools to sign-up for the queue. For example, the customers can sign-up using their smartphones, online customer portal, business’s corporate website, online booking portal, SMS, Email, Call, QR Code and even via WhatsApp. All this help improving customer experience.

Furthermore the queue management system can also communicate with the customers via SMS, online updates, smartphone applications, notification and alerts which keep providing necessary updates to the customers. The queue management system mobile application can even guide customers about het nearest and quickest service centers. This way the customers doesn’t even have to arrive to the service center to sign-up or stand in the waiting line, they are completely free to arrive only when their number is called. Hence the wait time can literally reduce to none. These features enhance customer experience, happy and satisfied customers are more likely to become a loyal customer.

Queue Management System Collects Valuable Queuing Data and Business Intelligence

The queuing data and the business intelligence is a great tool to analyze and improve your queuing strategy. A queue management system is a digital tool hence it can capture system usage and analytical data from each and every touch point of the customer journey. The queue management system can provide businesses with a wealth of knowledge and a better understanding to the customers’ behavior, their liking/disliking, market trends, customers’ expectations and needs. All this help businesses analyzing and identifying the flaws in their strategy and help them rectify those issues to ensure a better and improved customer experience.

A queue management system can also collect customer feedback data. The direct customer feedback gives your customer confidence and help gaining their trust. As when the customers think that their say is important they become more attached to the business. Moreover the customer feedback can also be very helpful in improving several other process. All these features help enhancing customer experience and raise their satisfaction. Happy and satisfied customer become loyal to their favorite brand and help businesses grow and progress.

Conclusion

Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are more adoptive towards latest technologies and modern business practices. The country is highly developed and the general population is very tech savvy. Almost 99% of the population uses mobile phone and have access to the internet. In such a society businesses need to fulfill the high demands from the customers and on top of that the markets are highly competitive. In the past few years, the digital customer experience, the automation and adaptation of modern technologies and solution is on rise.

The customer facing environments have also evolved a lot which made traditional manual queuing completely obsolete. A modern digital queue management system have become an essential for modern customer service centers. Businesses who have to deal with medium or large number of footfall can’t function without implementing a modern queue management solution. It has become so common that customers usually expect a digital ticketing system and modern queuing system whenever they visit a business or customer service center.

A queue management system significantly enhance customer experience, it offers them easy sign-up, it reduces their wait time and improves their waiting experience, it help maximizing the performance and productivity of the service agent, and it help improving service quality. All these improvements can significantly improve customer happiness and satisfaction. The customer satisfaction is a key to customer loyalty and the customer loyalty is crucial for a long term sustainable business success.

In this blog we have discuss how a queue management system can help businesses attain customer loyalty, if you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to implement a bespoke queue management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

April 4, 2023

Government Digital Transformation: Implementation of Queue Management System

The Government of UAE and other local governments are proactively adopting to digital technologies and modern solution in fact the government’s vision is to completely eliminate the paper and go fully digital. For that the government of UAE and local governments have taken several initiatives, and established a framework for all government offices, ministries, and departments. The digital transformation is one of the several revolutionary steps taken by the UAE government to improve the service quality and increase the access to the ordinary citizens.

We all knows that the government offices, ministries and departments are the busiest places with large footfall. The higher volume of visitors not only cause problems for the visitors but also for the staff. Therefore a solution is required to streamline the footfall and customer flow. The queue management system is a great tool to organize and manage the customer flow and customer experience, it also help reducing the workload of the employees and enhance their performance.

The UAE government and local governments also emphasizes on delivering excellent customer experience. The public also demand quality service and quicker delivery which put digital transformation at the top of the agenda for UAE and all local governments. The government departments and offices want to provide excellent customer services, comforting waiting experience and higher customer satisfaction. The large footfall is not the only problem, some offices and departments are also short on staff, some have multiple shifts and some have other limitations which are causing issues with adopting to modern queuing methods.

However, a digital queue management system can be game changer, it can streamline customer flow, organize the queuing process and it can minimize the waiting time while improving customer waiting experience and employee performance at the same time. In this blog we will discuss how a queue management system can significantly enhance government’s digital transformation.

Implementation of Queue Management System

A queue management system is a digital solution based on software and hardware components. A standard queue management system consist of a core software application which is usually hosted on servers or cloud. There are dedicated user dashboards for different user groups such as service agents, administration, branch managers, etc. The customers/citizen interact with the system through a self-service interactive kiosk which also dispense the tickets. There is an audio-visual announcement system which is used to make multi-lingual announcements. A regular queue management system can significantly improve customer experience and it can also help improving employee efficiency which also impact the customer happiness.

The queue management system also offers centralized administration and management features. Which allow the head office to monitor and control all connected branches. The branch managers and local administration can have their own localized access, but the head office can access the entire network. Such features are great to support the internal workflows and processes of a government department, ministry or office.

Benefits of Implementing a Queue Management System

The queue management system is a digital solution which is capable of integrating with other systems and tools to maximize the customer experience and performance of the queuing process. The centralized administration and management also enable queue management system to integrate with other systems and databases which is helpful in offering innovative features to enhance the customer experience and to improve the administrative capabilities of the management. The queue management system also help government offices and department to integrate modern communication channel and tools to allow customers and visitors to sign-up using multiple channels which make the process simple.

The queue management system automatically manages the customer flow and customer journey, which help reducing the customer wait time and it also significantly improve the customer flow. The digital queue management system also capture valuable data and provide management with insight and better understanding of customer behavior and trends which help them improve their internal processes and take steps to maximize the efficiency of the queuing process.

Here are the key benefits of implementing a digital queue management system:

Reduce Customer Wait Time: The customer wait time is one of the most crucial factor in customer journey, the queue management system streamline everything, and automatically handle the customer flow which help maximizing the efficiency and reduce the customer waiting time. It also help improving the employee performance by allowing them to focus only at their primary tasks, which improves their happiness.
Streamline Customer Flow: The government offices and departments always have large customer flow, during peak hours it become difficult to effectively manage the queues. However, with the queue management system everyone is issued with a ticket hence everyone knows when their turn came, and people also don’t rush to enter in random queues, instead people prefer to wait in waiting area which help organizing the queuing process.
Online Appointment Booking: The modern queue management system allow businesses to integrate online appointment booking module and offer customers easy-access to booking portal. The portal is integrated so the customers can also view additional information which help them to choose the right time, date and service. A planned visit help reducing customers’ frustration and it also enable customers to arrive just before their booked slot and get instant service.
Enable Virtual Queuing: The virtual queuing is one of the most modern queue management method, it allow customers and visitors to utilize multiple remote channel to sign-up for the queue, such as online, booking portal, website, mobile applications, SMS, email, WhatsApp, etc. The customers are not required to physically present in the waiting lines, instead they get live queuing information on their preferred channels and are free to arrive only when their turn came.
Improve Communication: A queue management system offers various integrated channels to enhance communication. When customers arrive at a government office they need information the same information can be provided using the digital signage screens, remote channels such as Email, SMS, mobile apps, online portals, etc. The communication is a key to customer satisfaction, providing them relevant information can significantly improve their experience and happiness.
Centralized Administration: The centralized administration is great for government departments and ministries as such institutions have multiple branches and offices so the centralized administration keep every branch aligned and allow the head office to monitor and control every connected branch in real-time. The queue management system also support internal processes, administrative hierarchies and workflows which significantly improves administration.
Improve Employee Performance: The employee performance is effected by large footfall, poorly organized waiting lines, unbalanced workload and problems inherent by manual queuing. The queue management system on the other hand not only eliminates all problems but also help reducing the workload of the employees as well. Employees get support with their tasks, they can focus on their primary tasks without any interruption which improves their performance.

The digital queue management system is a great tool for digital transformation of the government departments, offices and customer service centers. The queue management system not only help improving the customer journey but it also help maximizing the overall performance of the entire branch and help reducing the operational cost. Thanks to smart AI based software algorithms which enable queue management system to process data in real-time and take decisions.

All the features of a queue management system maximize the employee efficiency, help management to effectively utilize resources and reduce the need of several additional staff which results in serious cost-reduction and help optimizing the operational cost. The smooth experience, excellent quality service and innovative features of the modern queue management system help improving the image and perception of the government entity and in fact the entire government.

Conclusion

The government offices and departments are places where people have to visit for essential services, most of the time we found these places crowded. The large footfall is common, on top of that the peak hours and in some cases peak days could bring huge influx. Such scenario cause problems for both the customers and the employees. That is why the queue management system is an ultimate answer to all those problems, in fact it is a great tool to support government’s digital transformation policy. The UAE government and the local government all are stressing on importance of happy customer experience and quality of service. The queue management system help them achieve their goals and also help them reduce their operational cost by leveraging the digitalization and automation which reduce staff’s workload and improve the customer flow. Overall the customer journey is reduced, their experience is enhanced and the staff performance also improved as they can easily focus on their primary tasks instead of solving queuing problems and answering to unhappy customers in the waiting lines.

In this blog we have discussed the benefits of a modern queue management system, if you want to learn more about it or if you want our help to implement a modern cost-effective queue management system at your government office or at your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

February 16, 2023

The Beginner’s Guide to Queuing Theory

Most of the businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE faces problem with their queue management. It is common to sight long waiting lines and poorly managed queues at service centers, banks, telecom branches, government offices, and even in healthcare and educational institutions. In fact the queues are everywhere in our lives, some of them we might not consider as queues, and some we might address with other names. For example, let us suppose you woke up in the morning, while driving to your office at the road, the congestion and traffic is a queue, you went to a gas station and you stand in a queue to wait for your turn to fill the tank, you arrive at your work and you might see a line at the attendance register or biometrics attendance machine and so on.

We usually don’t realize, but the queues are everywhere and everyone have to face them. Every business belongs to the service industry will have to deal with the queue management problems. When it comes to adopt a modern queue management system the business leaders and managers often get confused due to the sheer number of possibilities available in the market.

Why Learning about Queuing Theory is Important for Businesses?

The queuing is a process where human, information or even material could be the subject waiting in lines for their turn. For example, the cars on a congested road are waiting in queues to pass an intersection, the customer call waiting at a call center is also queue, and the baggage control at the airport is passing your luggage through the queuing lines. All these different scenarios are the examples of the queuing. In this world the time is the most precious commodity, it is irreversible, no one wants to waste it. Businesses don’t want to waste their customers’ time neither their own.

Because wasting time can completely destroy the productivity and cause stressful situations for all concerned parties. Different queuing scenarios are the biggest cause of wasting our time whether it is at the road in traffic jam, or whether it is at a bank, office, service center, university, collage, hospital, hotel, restaurant, movie theater, or anywhere, it simply waste our time and it is very annoying. As queuing cause waste of time which directly impact the productivity that is why it is crucial for businesses to understand queuing theory.

The Queuing Theory

By definition the queuing theory or the queuing model is a study and knowledge of learning about the waiting lines, expected scenarios and queuing behavior based on discrete information, statistical/analytical data and practical assumptions. The purpose of a queuing theory is to measure the efficiency, effectiveness and overall performance of a queue management system. For example the queuing theory help you understand the long term behavior of the queue management system by estimating the average wait time, the probability of the customer flow at any given time period, the performance of the service agent, and service delivery time. This will help you determine the need of the servers and the wait and service delivery time, as per your demands or goals.

For example you will have to make assumption such as inputs the distribution of arrival and service time and the count of the server to implement the formula of the queuing theory to estimate the performance and effectiveness of the queue management system. The queuing theory formula will help you to understand the long term behavior or commonly known as the steady state behavior of your queue management system. The queuing theory or queuing model will enable you to test different scenarios to achieve the perfect match as per you needs and goals.

The Steady State Queuing Behavior

The steady state queuing behavior is due to the assumption that the queue management system doesn’t change anymore and maintain a steady state. It means that the influx, the server performance and various other variables that are used in the mathematical derivations are constant now and give a more rational measurement of the performance. The performance of a queue management system is very difficult to estimate in real-time as in real-time and practical example, there are too many variables and moving parts, which could either improve or hinder the effectiveness of the queue management system and most of them are non-linear. That is the reason the steady state queuing behavior is used to compare two different queue management systems and to test various different scenarios and configurations.

The steady state queuing behavior analysis will help businesses to find out the most perfect and effective queuing setup as per their demands and goals. That is why the queuing theory alone is not enough, hence businesses use simulation technique where they keep changing the state of the queue management system, measure the performance for each state and then take an average to understand the actual performance of a real-world application of the queuing theory.

The Importance of Queuing Discipline

Usually the notion of queuing discipline is first come first serve which is based on two factors, the performance and the fairness. However, that is not applicable all the time, in fact most of the time the businesses tend to utilize different queuing disciplines and more importantly is to understand that the performance of a queue management system can also be improved by utilizing more than one disciplines at a time. Here are the most commonly used queuing disciplines that are popular among the businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE:

First in first out (FIFO): This is the most ancient queuing discipline, whoever will come first should be served first to maximize the performance and fairness.
Last in first out (LIFO): This queuing discipline is most popular for the goods and materials, such as items that are placed in a delivery truck at the last should go out first.
Loop: The loop queuing discipline is popular for non-human queuing, it is being frequently used in the information systems and also in the production environments where every queuing subject needs constant service.
At once: That is also one of the most observed queuing discipline with limited application in the service industry. In ‘at once’ queuing configuration everyone wants to get served at the same time and the influx should be managed with a set of distributed server.
Priority Queues: The priority queues are the most frequently used queuing discipline in the service industry, where different customer groups have different level of priority and everyone is served on the bases of their priority not their arrival.

It is crucial for a business to learn and understand the different queuing disciplines. As this will help them to set up their queuing environment and the specifications of the queue management system will be varied based on the required queuing disciplines.

The Measurements of the Queuing Theory

It is extremely difficult to explain the queuing theory to people without any understanding of the operational science. One must have scientific knowledge and understanding of various formulas to estimate the performance of the queuing system.

Here is the formula to calculate the performance of the queue management system:

L = λW

Where

L = Average Number of the Customers

λ = Average Arrival Rate of the Customer

W = Average Service Time for the Customers

This formula was proposed by Mr. John Little which is used to understand the relationship between the distribution rate of the customers and the time required by them to get served. However, the queuing process includes other important factors which can impact its performance:

Customer Arrival: The arrival rate of the customers who are positioned first in the waiting lines
System Capacity: It is the maximum capacity of the queue management system to handle the customers
Service Points: These are the service points where the service is delivered, it could be a single point service or a multi-step service which require arrival at one server and departure from a different server
Output: The output is the customers who are departing from the system after getting the service

There are several other more complex theoretical and mathematical models that are commonly used in by the operation researches in the queuing theory, such as David George Kendall’s queuing model, Hall’s Queuing Rule of Thumb, etc. but those would be too complex to discuss here. However, the important thing to understand is that applying queuing theory along with adequate mathematical models and simulations can greatly help improving your queue management system.

Conclusion

The queue management system is an integral part of a modern day service centers. Whether you are a small or large business your customer facing staff and channels should be equipped with the adequate technology and tools in order to make sure your customers have a satisfactory experience. The customer satisfaction is a key to long term success as it drives customer loyalty and help businesses sustain growth. Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are using digital queue management systems to improve their queuing processes. The modern day queue management systems are powered by AI (artificial intelligence) based algorithms which can dramatically improve the efficiency and performance of the queuing process.

However, when it comes to implement a queue management system businesses often don’t have a clue of what type of queuing process they need and what features could help them achieve their desired goals. The purpose of this blog was to introduce our audience with the queuing theory, explaining the queuing theory without the mathematical models and calculation is a herculean task for the operation researches or experts.

In this blog we have tried to simplify the queuing theory to make it digestible for ordinary audience and help them leverage it to design or chose the right queue management system for their needs. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design a highly effective tailor-made queue management system for your business, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

February 14, 2023

Queue Management System Features you Need for Modern Queuing

The customer behavior, their needs and demands and the market conditions are always changing, businesses need to be more adoptive and pro-active in order to keep themselves up-to-date and competitive. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are more competitive, the customers are also very savvy, and their demands are skyrocketing. The economy is continuously growing, the competition is rising day by day, and customers have a lot of options available to them. One bad experience and your customers will leave you for good. It is extremely crucial to maintain a healthy, strong and satisfactory relationship with your customers.

The customer loyalty is one of the most precious asset for a business. This is why businesses are very eager to align themselves with their customers’ needs and demands. When it comes to a queue management system, the business leaders or CX (customer experience) managers can easily get overwhelmed with the sheer number of options available in the local market.

The effectiveness and impact of a queue management system depends on the system’s features and your needs. One doesn’t always fits all, but there are some universal features that can be very beneficial for all types and sizes of the businesses in the service sector. In this blog we will explore such features that can help all types and sizes of business to greatly improve customer experience and their queuing process.

What is Modern Queuing?

The queuing has come long way, traditionally the clipboard and pen based queuing was the way to manage the large footfall and crowded waiting areas. Later on businesses started realizing that they need to do more, this is when the technology starts coming in to the play and that was the time of inception of the modern queuing. The modern queuing methods that businesses are following in Dubai and all across the UAE are have evolved a lot. The technology itself have transformed a lot, now a days, the technology is widely available, the digital ecosystem and IT infrastructure of an average business is enough to support the modern queuing methods and practices.

By definition the modern queuing is a queue management system based on the digital technology and software-based solutions. It helps automating several queuing steps and it can automatically manage customer routes and other major queuing tasks. With the help of digitalization and automation the business processes become very efficient and cost-effective too.

Features of a Modern Queue Management System

A modern queue management system is a software based application aided with several hardware devices. Usually there is a sign-up kiosk which allow customers to interact with the system, chose their required service, input data if needed, and dispense the ticket number. There are digital signage and large screens used to display the queuing information and audio announcement system is also considered to be an essential component of the modern queuing. Apart from that there are several administrative dashboards which let managers, head office and service agent interact with the system.

The modern queuing system can also integrate with third-party tools, customer database, central information system and any other software to improve functionality and performance of the system. There are many benefits of a modern queue management system, some are more beneficial for some businesses than the others and so on. Here are the most useful features of a modern queue management system which are equally beneficial for all businesses.

Queue Management System Features: Digitalization and Automation

A modern queue management system converts the traditional manual queuing process into a more effective and efficient digital business process by leveraging the technology and AI (artificial intelligence) based software. The digitalization greatly improve the process and also capture valuable data which can be later utilized in various other processes. The digitalization also help automating several customer journey steps and improve customer flow. Due to digitalization and automation the human efforts are significantly reduced which means the business need much less resources to manage their queuing process.

The modern queue management system works on smart algorithms which are capable to capturing data in from all touchpoints and various other details and enable queue management system to take real-time decisions to improve the queuing. Furthermore the modern queue management systems also provide self-service sing-up channels to the customers. Usually there is an interactive touch-screen self-service kiosk to sign-up the customer and dispense the tickets. But there are several other methods that can also be offered to customers to improve their experience, such as remote sign-up, mobile apps, online appointment booking, etc.

Queue Management System Features: Significant Reduction in Wait Time

The customer wait time is the single most impactful factor that can completely ruin your all efforts to attain customer satisfaction. According to several studies on an average a customer can wait for up to 5 to 9 minutes, this time limit is different for different industries, after that threshold the customer will start getting stressed and frustrated which will ruin their experience. That is why no matter what type of queue management system you use, the wait time should be minimized as much as possible. The digital queue management system used modern technology and AI based algorithms which enable them to minimize the customer wait time.

When the customers sign-up for a queue, they are given a ticket number, the customer flow and movement of queues is fully autonomous, which eliminate any staff involvement in it. Furthermore the customers are allowed to wait comfortably in the designated spaces, hence not much management is required. The automation and no human involvement can significantly reduce the wait time. It also let the service agent focus on their primary tasks, which improve service delivery and make it quicker.

Furthermore the modern queue management system also help service agents in their tasks, which reduce their efforts and improve their focus on service delivery and other crucial tasks. A modern queuing need digitalization and automation, the electronic queue management systems help managing various other tasks for the staff which greatly improve the service quality and help reducing the service delivery time which eventually reduce the customer wait time. The electronic queue management system also capture valuable performance insight which help businesses further enhance the employee performance and reduce the customer wait time.

The queue management system have capabilities to monitor the entire queuing process in real-time which enables it to take real-time decision and improve customer flow. For example, if a service counter is slow due to any reason, the queue management system can automatically redistribute the workload to ensure all counters work under a balanced workload, this also help reducing wait time and when employee work under balanced workload their efficiency also improves.

Queue Management System Features: Support for Virtual Queuing

Virtual queuing is not a new phenomenon. However, since the 2020 we have witnessed a huge rise in the adaptation of virtual queuing all across the country. The virtual queuing is the most modern form of digital or electronic queue management systems. It takes the waiting time management to the next level, the methods and practices adopt by virtual queuing can literally reduce the wait time to none. Basically the virtual queuing offers more freedom and flexibility to the customers, it allow them to remotely sign-up for the queue by interacting with queue management system using digital media such as SMS, Email, WhatsApp, Mobile Apps, Website, Customer Portals, Appointment Booking Portals, QR Codes, etc.

These channels allow the customer and visitors to remotely sign-up for the queue and receive queuing updates through the most convenient channel. This means they don’t have to be physically present at the premises, they will be singed-up in a virtual queue. This allow them freedom to wait anywhere they want to do whatever they want to do during that time. Furthermore they can also plan their visit in a way that they arrive at business only when their number is called. The virtual queuing minimize the wait time and improve customer experience by offering them more control, flexibility and freedom.

Queue Management System Features: Centralized Management

A digital or electronic queue management system is based on a queuing server application which is hosted online, in cloud or at a local in-premises datacenter. Which allow it to capture all the information and data in a centralized repository. This also help solving many management related problems and also offer more innovative features to improve the queuing process and to drive the efficiency. Usually business have multiple branches, regional offices, outlets, or customer service centers, and a single main location or head office. The head office is where the senior management resides, who want to monitor and control all connected branches.

The queue management system offers a centralized management mechanisms where it provides head office staff full control over all the branches and share live queuing updates with the head office to improve the monitoring. The queue management system also allow businesses to configure desirable workflows and managerial hierarches to align the queuing process with their existing management structure. The head office and the managers with access can have full control and real-time information about the queuing which enable them to take quick actions to improve the customer flow and to solve the problems or handle the disruptions.

Queue Management System Features: Data Collection

The modern day businesses and marketplaces are heavily relying on information technology and the data is the lifeblood of information technology. A digital queue management system provides a great insight on your queuing process and performance. It can accurately capture footfall insight which help management identify various trends, such as peak hours, days, occasions, popular services, customer churn, etc. The electronic queue management system can also capture employee performance data and various KPIs, such as the average number of served customers in a shift, the active/inactive time, the time spend on a service delivery, etc. The queue management system can also capture customer feedback data either from on-site touchscreens or tablets, or from other channels such as WhatsaApp, Mobile Applications, SMS, email, etc. Any good digital queue management system also have in-built data analytical tools, which help managers to performance various analysis within seconds, and produce actionable reports. The queue management system can also integrate its data with the central information system or any other third-party tool and it also offer data sharing features which improve the control and monitoring capabilities of the management.

Conclusion

The customer happiness and customer satisfaction are the most crucial factor for the modern businesses, the market have already started transitioning from business oriented to customer oriented and that is because of rising competition and more demanding customer behavior. The queuing process is extremely important for the service sector. Businesses who failed to organize and manage their queues will loss the customers and eventually their reputation as well. That is why leveraging modern technologies to adopt to modern queuing has become an essential. A digital or electronic queue management system is a technology based solution for your queuing process. It streamlines customer flow and leverage the automation to improve the process and performance of the employees and customer service reps. The digital queue management system also provide a wealth of valuable business intelligence data which help businesses understand the customer experience and help them identify the areas of improvement to further increase customer satisfaction. In this blog we have listed the key features of a modern electronic queue management system, if you want to learn more or if you want our help to implement a custom-made highly cost-efficient digital queue management system for your business. Please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: The Benefits of Electronic Queuing System

January 23, 2023

How to Avoid Long Queues at Your Events

Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is a very vibrant and dynamic marketplace. The country is a center of all business activities in the region. Businesses and organizations are organizing several events, exhibitions, seminars and gatherings for networking, promotional and awareness purposes. It is very common to see long waiting lines outside these event venues, no attendee want to spend most of their time waiting in the long queues. This will ruin their experience, it will make them unhappy, and it will cause frustration. This led to unhappiness and also increase churn rate, which means that the longer the waiting time is more customers will abandoned the queues and will leave without attending the event.

It also have other repercussions, such as it will annoy your visitors and customers, they will fail to participate or focus on the event at least for the first few minutes, in the worst case they will give you negative rating by any channel which is easily accessible to them. If you are collecting post-event feedback, you will get more negative comments and rating. Furthermore the unhappy visitors can also publish something over their social media and they can cause negative or bad publicity for you which could repel more people in attending your events in future and so on.

The negative impact of long waiting on customer experience is long lasting, it not only make your customers unhappy, but it will also impact your reputation and brand image. The first impression is always important, and if it is waiting for long time in crowded areas with very little or no clear indication of how long your customers and visitors might have to wait, is not a good first impression. Businesses often spend huge resources and money on many facilities they are offering but do very little about managing the queues. In this blog we will discuss how a fairly smaller investment in a modern queue management system can completely eliminate this problem.

Queue Management System for Events

A queue management system is a technological solution for a business’s queuing needs. There are a variety of different queue management systems available in the market, the best approach is to acquire a leading queue management system provider in Dubai, such as RSI Concepts and ask them to customize a queue management system according to your needs. There are ready-made solutions too, but they offer limited features and limited customization. Basically a queue management system is a combination of software and hardware components. The software is server side application with multiple clients who can interact with the system through intuitive UIs (user interfaces) and the hardware components vary from case to case.

Different businesses have different requirement, for example if you are hosting an event for the first time, you might be needing self-service event registration kiosks, ticket/pass dispensing self-service interactive kiosks, digital signage, etc. If you already have self-service even registration kiosks, you might need only a few more or you can integrate your existing kiosks with the system. That is the beauty of the customized software and applications, they are very flexible to integrate with other technologies which save a lot of efforts and time too.

These components will form a queue management system. In this blog we will discuss the key advantages and features of a queue management system that will help you managing your waiting lines for your events.

Improve Customer Flow Through Event Registration Process

The biggest problem at an event’s entrance is the crowd formation and the major causes of crowd formation are poor queuing management and delays at registration counters. Usually all event organizers encourage their customers to register prior to the event via online or email/call, etc. Which could prevent them of spending time at registration counters. However, the registration counters are always present because they are needed. A majority of the visitors would definitely failed to complete the registration beforehand, hence they would be needing registration counter.

The manual registration counters are slower and cause several problems that is why most of the event organizers use interactive self-service registration kiosks. The self-service kiosks make the process quicker, eliminate the chances of errors, and improve customer experience. However, large footfall can cause congestion at those counters which passed on to the entrances and cause more queuing problems. A queue management system helps improving the registration process, you can directly integrate the registration forms within the queue management system or you can integrate a third-party registration management system with the queue management system.

Usually the registration area is also the same area where the entrances are, hence it could cause double problem, people can get lost or confused, the queues can tangled with each other and make situation more chaotic. A queue management system on the other hand can streamline customer flow by allowing customers and visitors to sign-up for the queue first, then they can register and then using the same ticket number they can enter the venue, the ticket number can be assigned with a QR code or Barcode which can automate the customer flow. Furthermore the digital signage help customers and visitors to keep track of their turn in the queues and guide them through the entire process.

All this can be done fully autonomously without any help from the staff. This not only make process very efficient but it also help reducing the resource consumption of the process. The queue management system can automatically route the customers with integrated customer calling mechanisms through the digital signage and audio announcements. Each time a customer’s turn came they can go to the registration kiosk, scan their ticket and then fill in the form. The same ticket can be scanned on next steps to enter into the venue. This makes the process simple, automated and it significantly improve the customer flow.

Integrate Virtual Queuing Features to Improve Customer Experience

The virtual queuing is one of the most modern form of digital queue management systems. It offers multiple remote channels to sign-up for the queues, enable businesses to minimize the customer wait time which help improving customer experience. There are many way to offer virtual queuing features, mostly the virtual queuing involves the online and digital channels. The business can integrate the customer portals, mobile phone application, exclusive registration pages, and many more digital channels to offer more convenience and ease. The customers can sign-up easily from any of the available option. When they will sing-up for the queue and do the registration process, they will be issued a ticket number or token number.

This e-ticket will contain the customers’/visitor’s number in the queue, and it will also provide a unique barcode or QR code which later serve as a gate pass for various steps. This also allow the visitors to utilize their smartphones or mobile devices to sign-up and register instead of waiting for the self-registration kiosks. The virtual queuing can be a great tool to minimize the wait time and manage the large influx at the entrances. Furthermore it can also help businesses to assign groups to different customers and visitors and let them enter as a group, in fact the entry could be individual but the customer call will call a range of the ticket numbers, which can also help speed up the process and reduce customer efforts and wait time.

Easily Manage Disruptions and Increase Customer Happiness

Interruptions, blockage or halted customer flow is a common thing in events with large venues. Especially when there is a sitting arrangements, the staff is deployed inside the venues to guide everyone to their seats and so on. All this requires time, in order to prevent congestion inside, sometimes the staff stop the visitors at the entrances, there could be other problems too, such as a dispute or disagreement, most of the time people lost their passes and they stuck at the security, sometimes the security searches cause disruptions, in short there could be so many things that can cause unexpected disruptions or delay in the customer flow. The queue management system have capabilities to prevent crowd by announcing messages, to inform people about the situation.

The queue management system can also communicate with the customers and visitors who have used digital channels to sign-up for the queue. It is important to be transparent with your customers and visitors. Telling them the expected time to wait is not bad, it help them understand what is to be expected and prepare them for wait. However, the impact of these disruption can be reduced by rerouting customers to other entry points. The queue management system can do that automatically.

The queue management system collects data form all touch points, it has AI (artificial intelligence) based smart algorithms which are capable to taking decisions in real time which can significantly reduce the impact of disruptions and help improving customer experience by rerouting them and providing them live updates at their most convenient communication channel.

Queue Management System Provides Business Intelligence Data which Improve Planning and Management

The queue management system provides in-depth business intelligence data. The data is collected from all touchpoints and also record historical system usage data which help the event organizing team to understand the customer behavior and flow and help them based their strategies upon concrete information and not on guessing work. The queue management system collects and store historical data from each and every touch point and throughout the customer journey. This data can help management understand the expected customer footfall and help them prepare themselves beforehand by allocating adequate resources and making plans for the registration and entrance areas which is the major cause of congestion and longer wait time.

The queue management system provides in-built data analytical and processing tools which can help management identify the trends and predict accurately the number of expected attendees. Obviously as all other registration channels are integrated with the queue management system so it can also provide the number of people who have already been registered and by comparing this data with the historical data, it is easier to estimate the total number of expected customers and visitors at any event.

Furthermore there are always different types of customers and visitors, some are VIP or Premium Visitors, some are People with Special Needs, and some are different in many other ways, which require a different treatment and protocol. The managers can easily understand which type of user-group will show-up at what time with what numbers, and so on. This comparison will help management make a better policy and plan of actions for the event. In case of any interruption or delay the management can also view the live queuing data which can help them understand where and why the interruption happened, and help them resolving the problem more quickly.

It also help them understand how many people are in queue, and how to divert them to other moving queues to minimize the impact of the interruption. The management can also alert people who are on their way or are present at the reception area with multiple communication tools and channels. Which help them improving the customer experience as well as reducing the frustration caused by such unplanned interruptions and delays.

Conclusion

Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are well aware of the importance of communication and engagement with their customers. Organizing and hosting events, exhibits, seminars, conferences and large meetings is a common theme for any business in the country. These events are used to promote brand and attract more customers. Whether you are B2B or a B2C business these events are vital for growth and brand image building. Apart from the benefits of hosting an event, the event organization and management is a double-edged sword for the organizing team.

If anything goes wrong it could seriously damage the brand image and will hurt the reputation. There are several things and several moving parts which need highly proactive team to manage everything. The biggest challenge is always to handle the crowd and manage the queues. Every business tries to register attendees beforehand however, there would always be a large number of attendees who will register through on-site registration counters or interactive self-service registration kiosks. Furthermore usually as the start time comes closer the footfall start rising very quickly.

Therefore a proper digital queue management system is required to help the staff in managing the large footfall and solving the queuing problems. In this blog we have discussed how a smart digital queue management system can be used to improve your customer experience at events. If you want to know more about the subject or if you want our help to provide you with a highly cost-effective queue management system and self-registration solutions, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

January 13, 2023

Must have features of a Queue Management System

Businesses who deals with daily footfall understand the importance of waiting line management. In any given day there would be a time when the footfall would be very high, this time period is also known as peak hours, which would indicate the maximum footfall. It is those peak hours when the influx is high the crowd forms. The crowd formation lead to a nightmarish situation for the staff and the management. Managing large influx could be a very challenging task. For that business hire new staff, allocate more resources and might also adopt technological solutions. This also makes queuing very expensive.

However, a business must have a queuing process to manage the waiting line and to organize the customers and visitors. A digital queue management system is a very effective tool to manage waiting areas, transitioning from chaos to control, businesses can greatly elevate efficiency and customer experience. Managing waiting line will help businesses to improve customer flow and reduce customer wait time. The queue management is also essential for customer experience. The customer experience is the most important part of any business’s strategy.

It is extremely important to ensure a happy and satisfactory customer experience. A satisfied customers turns into loyal one and customer loyalty is essential for long term sustainable growth and profitability.

When it comes to queue management, the earliest form of queue management systems were just making line which were usually served as first come first served bases. Later on the clipboard and pen method was introduced all around the world, in fact many businesses from all around the world are still using this method. However, it turns out to be very inefficient, especially for the modern digital world the manual waiting line management is too outdated. That is when paperless or the digital queue management systems were introduced. The digital queue management systems have also evolved a lot over the past two decades.

Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are slightly different, it is actually due to rapid growth, tougher competition and savvy customers with sky-high demands and expectations. This encouraged both businesses and vendors to come up with more advanced, innovative and efficient queue management systems. When you seek to acquire a queue management system in Dubai or anywhere in UAE you will find tons of options. One can easily get overwhelmed with the sheer number of designs and models advertised all over the market. That is why in this blog we will list all essential and important features of a queue management system that you must consider while acquiring a new queuing solution.

Important Features of a Queue Management System

Before we discuss the important features of a queue management system it is important to understand what a basic digital queue management system is. A digital queue management system consists of two parts, one is the software and the other is the hardware. The queuing process starts with the customer or visitor signing up for the queue via ticket dispensing self-service interactive kiosk and they system issued them a ticket containing their position in the queue and the estimated time to their turn. The system also have audio-visual announcement module which makes announcements at each customer calling and also provide basic queuing details at a large signage screen.

When the customer’s number is called they reach to the designated counter, get served and leave. Some queue management system also provide a customer feedback collection module which request customers to submit feedback before leaving. Furthermore the queue management system automates several steps of the customer journey and have ability to collect valuable business intelligence data which help management analyze and improve relevant processes and work flows.

When a business decides to acquire a modern digital queue management system they can easily get overwhelmed with the sheer number of options and vendors available in the UAE. This could be confusing and very challenging for the management, here are the key features that you should consider while selecting a queue management system for your business to ensure maximum performance and impact.

Features of Queue Management System: 1. Essential Hardware Components

The queue management system is built on very effective and efficient technology platforms. There is no maximum limit of hardware component but there is a minimum limit. The queue management system technology is widely available and utilized hence it makes it easier to find a tons of hardware accessories which enable businesses to offer more innovative and convenient features. Here is a list of basic hardware components that are essential to operate a digital queue management system:

Ticket Dispensing Unit or Ticket Dispensing Interactive Self-Service Kiosk
Digital Signage Screens and Displays
Announcement System
Counter Plates or Counter Displays

The quantity of the hardware depends on the size of the service center and other details. Such as if the waiting area is small then only 1 digital signage is fine, it waiting area is larger than we might need 2, furthermore if the digital signage is not visible from every part of waiting area then we will also require to install 2 of them and so on. Similarly the interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk, counter plates and/or any other hardware quantity is determined.

Apart from essential hardware components there are several other factors that also cause businesses to have a different hardware configurations. There are several other hardware components and accessories that can also be installed. For example if you want to fetch the customer identification details at the sign-up process than you might require an Emirate ID Card Reader, an RFID or passport scanner, barcode reader, document scanner, etc. All those hardware accessories can be integrated with the interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk. Similarly business could have different needs and processes hence they might need different types of hardware which they can integrate in the system to maximize its usability and functionality.

Business also frequently use customer feedback collection for that they can integrate separate hardware devices in the system such as touch screen tablets, interactive kiosks, etc. The touch screen and tablets are usually used at the counters or near the service counters, the kiosks are usually placed at the exits or in easy-to-reach place where most of the customers and visitors can see them. These hardware can also be integrated with the queue management system if needed.

Features of Queue Management System:2. Essential Software Components

The queue management system software is the core application which process all the data, take instructions and perform the queuing tasks. The queue management system software is a server-side application which contains all the source codes, algorithms and processes required for the system. The core application can be accessed by multiple interfaces which are exclusively designed for different user groups.

Customer UI
Service Agent Dashboard
Administrative Dashboard

The customer user interface (UI) is accessible from the interactive self-service kiosk which is used for sign-up process and it also dispense the tickets. Furthermore the customers can be provided with additional features via this UI which are available. The service agents also got their dedicated dashboard which is designed for them. The service agent dashboard offer several useful options via an intuitive UI. The service agent’s dashboard is designed to help and facilitate several agent’s tasks such as pre-sale, post-sale tasks, customer calling, queuing information, customer rerouting features, etc.

Then there is an administrative dashboard which is the back office of the system and is designed for the IT and the management. The management can get live queuing data, historical data, performance data, analytical tools, and features to manage the content, configurations and processes of the queue management system. These all are basic software components but businesses can have more features as per their needs.

Features of Queue Management System:3. Automated Customer Flow Management

The biggest advantage of a digital queue management system is that it helps automating the customer flow and improve customer experience by reducing customer wait time and improving the efficiency of the employees. However, many businesses doesn’t realize that this automation can be extremely useful if it also allow them to customize the processes as per their needs or situation. Usually a digital queue management system have basic configuration which allow businesses to implement their queuing policy and the smart algorithms automates the entire process. A good queue management system will also provide you customization features which will enable you to configure a lot many details of the process.

It also gives businesses more control over their queuing policies and make it easier to implement a customized queuing policy. This also involved special need scenarios, for example at an event or occasion when you are expecting massive footfall you can implement an entirely different queuing policy for a limited time period and later resume to regular procedures. Similarly the queue management system software is based on AI (artificial intelligence) and smart algorithms which enables it to analyze queuing data in real-time and take decisions in real-time to reroute customers to ensure maximum efficiency and to optimize the wait time and performance. All such features are an indicator of a good high-performance queue management system.

Features of Queue Management System:4. Virtual Queuing

The virtual queuing is one of the modern form of queue management process. The virtual queuing gain huge popularity in Dubai and all around the UAE in past few years. Businesses and customers both are admiring it because of its great benefits and excellent efficiency. The virtual queuing involves integrating digital channels and remote mediums which allow customers and visitors to interact with the queue management system without being physically present at the business premises. That is the major difference between the traditional queue management systems and virtual queue management systems.

Customers and visitors are allowed to sign-up for virtual queues using remote channels such as website, QR code, customer portals, mobile phone applications, SMS, Email, Call, etc. The customers are issued an e-ticket which contains their position in the queue and estimated time to their turn. This means that a customer or visitor can sign-up for the queue while sitting at their home or office. Then they can plan their travel accordingly to spend least time at the waiting areas. That is why the waiting time for the virtual queue management system is very short and in fact in some cases it is literally none.

There are several other benefits of virtual queuing such as live queuing updates via website, customer portals, SMS, WhatsApp, mobile apps, etc. Alerts and notifications are also very useful and the customers and agents can communicate as well. In general the virtual queuing offers an excellent customer experience and much higher customer satisfaction than any traditional digital queue management system.

Features of Queue Management System:5. Third-Party System Integration

Whenever a business acquires a new software based solution they always consider the capabilities and limitations of the third-party integration feature. Similarly when you are acquiring a digital queue management system you should also make sure that it will offer adequate support for third-party system integration. The third-party system integration is basically a technological solution to enable two separate and standalone systems to communicate with each other. Both systems can share data and synchronize instructions to maximize the efficiency, performance and capabilities of the systems. The third-party system integration depends on the technology, programing techniques and the structure of the software.

Some closed-source software doesn’t allow integration outside of their ecosystem which can be a great problem for system integration. Some technologies fully support third-party integration but are not compatible with the other systems. Hence it is important to understand your existing IT infrastructure and digital environment before deciding which queue management system you want to implement. With the help of system integration you can maximize the efficiency of the system and relevant processes, you can minimize repeated work and efforts required to perform a task and you can save time and resources of data conversion and manual upload.

For example the integration of the queue management system with the customer database allow it to identify the customer, if you are also collecting customer feedback and it is integrated with your queuing system you can improve the response rate and data quality and the third-party system integration also help you facilitate service agent and maximize their work quality and efficiency. That is why the third-party system integration is a must to have feature for a queuing system.

Features of Queue Management System:6. Centralized Administration

For service sector it is common to have multiple offices, branches and service centers. This means that most of the businesses have one central location or head office where the most senior management resides and then they have several branches or regional offices. A good queue management system provide you great features to support a centralized management structure. The administrative dashboard comes with ability to allow creating multiple user groups with different access and administration authority which should align with your internal hierarchal structure. Such features will help you to integrate your work flows and management practices within the queue management process.

Furthermore it will also allow head office and senior management to monitor and manage each and every connected branch. The system allow appointing a branch manager at each location, even one manager can have multiple locations as well and then there could be several other access levels such as assistants, supervisors, etc. The agents could also have different access and administration levels such as ordinary service agent, team lead, supervisor, and manager, etc. All these features will help businesses manage and monitor their queuing processes from head office and also help supporting the on-site staff and management in their tasks and activities.

Features of Queue Management System:7. Maintenance, Scalability and Customization

Most of the time when businesses acquire a new software solution they usually don’t pay much attention to the future scalability, maintenance, customization, upgrades, etc. However it is crucial to understand and agree with the vendor on these points. Most of the queue management systems in the market offers great support in all these areas however, the trickier part is that every vendor has its own payment and costing structure hence all these things could be very costly. There are two different types of software, one is COTS or commercial off-the-shelf software which are ready-to-use and are designed by a vendor or service provider according to the market standards. The up-scaling, customization and modifications could cost you a lot down the road which impact the overall ROI of the system.

There is another type of software solution which is called customized software development, in that case the vendor design and develop a tailor-made queue management system solution exclusively for your business and you will get full ownership rights of the product. In that case all such costs can be eliminated or significantly reduced which improve your ROI over the time. No matter which system development approach you take it is important to clearly understand, define and agree upon all these aspects as in future you will be needing all those services. Any obstacle or difficulty could compromise your growth, progress and productivity as well.

Features of Queue Management System:8. Business Intelligence Data Gathering

In the present day and age the modern businesses are heavily relying on the data, in fact the most successful business strategies are completely data driven. Business decisions, policy making, strategies and product development functions heavily rely on the business intelligence data. The business intelligence data is basically the insight to your internal and external processes including employees, customers, communication, and much more. A good queue management system always capture valuable business intelligence data. It can capture system usage and analytical data from each and every customer touch-point throughout the customer journey. It monitor and evaluate the entire queuing process, customer journey, customer experience, happiness and overall efficiency of the queuing process.

Furthermore the queue management system is also capable of monitoring several employee performance KPIs and it can integrate with other systems to further improve the quality of the business intelligence data. The customer feedback is one of the most important part of business intelligence data, a good queue management system offers you integrated customer feedback tools, or it can also provide in-built customer feedback management features which help you to gather feedback data long with other insights.

A queue management system also provide in-built analytical tools and data sharing capabilities which allow managers to extract actionable reports and share data with stakeholders to address the problems and take actions for future improvements.

Conclusion

The Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is a very dynamic marketplace, the customer trends are changing rapidly the market competition is growing steadily and the technology is evolving on a rapid pace. All these factors need a business to adopt to the technologies and practices that can respond to the sudden changes and also support business growth. When it comes to the modern marketplace the businesses have started transitioning from a sales-oriented business model to a more customer-centric business model since more than a decade now. This transition was not sudden but gradually it have completely changed the way businesses were operating around a decade ago.

For any customer-centric business the customers are its top priority, especially in highly competitive markets the businesses need to pay more attention to their customers’ needs, desires and interests. According to several studies and researches all around the globe, a modern day customer puts experience equal to the quality of the product or service they acquire from a business. These studies have also indicated that a majority of the customers are willing to pay extra if they are ensured that they will get a better experience. This makes customer experience one of the most important success factor. Businesses all around the UAE are actively seeking new methods, practices, technologies and solutions which can help them improve customer experience.

A queue management system is the solution to all major problems that a service-based business could face. It help businesses improve customer experience and it also increase their operational capabilities and performance. That is why a when it comes to acquire a new queue management system there is a lot on the stake. Businesses need to be very careful when selecting a new queue management system. However, in Dubai and all around the UAE the sheer number of vendors and different types of queue management systems can make it very confusing for a manager to decide which solution they should choose.

That is why in this blog we have listed the basic details about the software and hardware of the queue management system along with several other features that can help you achieve your current goals and a good queue management system with all these features will make you able to deal with unexpected and uncertain future market conditions. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design and develop a custom tailor-made and highly cost-efficient queue management system for your business please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

January 11, 2023

Why a Virtual Queuing System Is Better Than Clipboard and Pen

The businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are well-aware of the queuing difficulties and problems. Especially the retail and service-based industry suffers the most. The businesses who require their customers to arrive at their location or branch in order to make a transaction are the ones with more intense queuing and crowd management problems. Traditionally the queuing process is managed via clipboard and pen. Businesses doesn’t use any tool or complex software solution for their queuing and crowd management needs. This caused very serious problems and businesses have started noticing higher walk-out rates.

Furthermore the market conditions, customer behavior and other factors also started transforming the queuing industry. We have witnessed the rapid and in-depth integration of smartphones and other digital technologies in our both work and private lives. The customer experience has become much more important than ever before in recent times. In fact there are several studies and market researches which suggest that an ordinary customer place experience equal to the quality of the product or service they are acquiring. The clipboard and pen based conventional queue management methods are unable to offer a better customer experience.

Furthermore the modern workplaces are heavily data driven the businesses need a tons of data in order to function properly hence there are several technological solutions and software that are considered to be absolute necessity for the modern businesses. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE in fact anywhere in the world, the cost of the labor and retaining employees is very expensive. In order to improve operational capabilities a business might have to hire more employees. First of all more employees doesn’t necessarily means optimized and improved productivity, you must also have to have management mechanisms in place in order to maximize the outcome of the teams and individual employees.

That is the reason businesses implement digital solutions and software. The digitalization and IT help businesses in achieving maximum performance with far less employees and far less sophisticated management. In fact a single employee can produce an outcome worth of a team’s work if proper technology and digital tools are in place. Same is applicable to queuing process as well. Businesses need a proper technology to maximize the success rate and in order to achieve their strategic and long-term business goals.

What is Virtual Queuing?

The virtual queuing is a modern form of digital queue management systems. The traditional digital queue management systems have greatly improved the queuing process however, the virtual queuing have completely revolutionized it. The traditional queuing significantly improve customer flow, reduce their wait time, improve management and enhance customer experience. But the virtual queuing have amplified all those advantages with innovative features and integration of modern technologies and digital platforms. The virtual queuing not only allow your customers and visitors to sign-up remotely for virtual queues but it also provide them freedom doing so without being physically present at the premises.

This means that the customers and visitors can sign-up for a virtual queue while they are at their home or work and their wait time starts right away, they will be served on time as per their ticket or e-ticket number without being physically waiting or standing in queues at the business’s premises. This is the major difference between a traditional digital queue management system and virtual queue management system. The virtual queuing further enhance customer experience by providing facility to sign-up using multiple remote channels and other useful features. This is what make virtual queuing more superior than the traditional digital queue management systems.

Why a Virtual Queuing System is better than a Traditional Clipboard and Pen Method?

The virtual queuing system can completely eliminate all pain points that cause a lot of problems in the traditional clipboard and pen line management methods. That is the main reason of implementing a digital virtual queuing system. Furthermore the virtual queuing system also offers a tons of benefits and can help businesses effectively compete in the modern marketplace. Here are the common problems that a traditional clipboard and pen method has along with key advantages of using a virtual queuing system:

Common Problems with Traditional Clipboard and Pen Waiting Line Management

The traditional manual queuing management with clipboard and pen is an outdated process. It is not effective anymore and the businesses need a better management tool to ensure a smooth customer experience. Here are some very common problems that businesses and customers face with a traditional clipboard and pen based queuing management methods:

Unclear Wait Time: The wait time is one of the most important factor in queue management and it have profound impact on the customer experience. The manual clipboard and pen based queuing management can’t estimate wait time or provide a clear information to the customer which is also the cause of most of the complaints.
Higher Customer Churn Rate: The manual clipboard and pen based queuing management always have higher walk-out rate which is called customer churn rate. The customer churn rate is represent a great loos of the sales, not only that it results in unhappy and unsatisfied customers who will share their experience with others which will harm your business’s brand image.
Inconvenient for Employees: The biggest problem with the clipboard and pen based queuing system is that only one employee at a time can have it. But that is not practical, usually more than one staff will have to manage the waiting lines hence they will have to constantly pass the clipboard and pen to the next employee. Furthermore the handwriting and typo also cause more problems.
Poor Customer Experience: The customers can never be provided with the accurate estimated time to their turn, usually it crosses the value the staff estimates due to several factors. However, another critical problem is that the clipboard and pen based queue management requires customers and visitors to stand nearby or in waiting lines, hence they have less freedom and could feel bound which results in frustration and unhappiness.
No Data Collection: The business intelligence data is vital for strategy making and decision taking processes. A clipboard and pen based queuing system cannot gather any kind of business intelligence data. It is nearly impossible to understand customer behavior, their experience, the waiting time and employee performance, etc. using clipboard and pen queuing management method. Without clear information decisions and strategies have too much guessing work which reduce the success rate and can undermine the profitability and productivity of a business.

The waiting line management can be very challenging for businesses. There are several factors that contribute to long waiting lines and their repercussions on customer experience. The clipboard and pen queuing is a very old waiting line management method. Due to its inherent disadvantages and flaws businesses started adopting more modern and technologically advanced queuing methods such as implementing a digital queue management system. Here are some key advantages of virtual queuing that will help you significantly improve customer experience, and drive efficiency and productivity in the internal business processes.

Advantages of a Virtual Queuing System

Any digital queue management system can offer a great efficiency comparing to traditional clipboard and pen methods. However, the virtual queuing is considered to be the most modern and advanced form of queue management systems. The virtual queuing system help businesses achieve a better customer flow and improve customer journey and experience. The customer experience drives customer loyalty, and the customer loyalty is a key to long term success. Furthermore the virtual queuing system is also a great tool to collect highly valuable business intelligence data which help businesses understand and evaluate their internal processes, customer experience and much more.

The virtual queuing system utilizes the most commonly used communication channels and mediums to make it more convenient for an average customer or visitor to access to the system. The virtual queuing also help reducing the customer wait time and provide better control over the customer flow. The crowd prevention features help management dealing with any unexpected scenario and large influx of the customer and visitors. The virtual queuing system is based on an AI (artificial intelligence) based smart software engine which also facilitate communication and improve customer engagements. Here are the key advantages of a virtual queuing system which make it far more superior than the conventional clipboard and pen methods.

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Easy Remote Sign-up Features

One of the biggest advantage of a virtual queuing system is that it offers multiple remote sign-up methods. Which makes it more convenient and easier for the customers and visitors to sign-up remotely without being physically present at the business premises. There are multiple channels that can be integrated with virtual queuing system such as SMS, Call Center, Online Booking, Customer Portals, Corporate Website, Queue Management System Mobile Apps, WhatsApp, QR Code, etc. All these channels help customers sign-up easily without any need of physically appearing at the business.

The customers are signed-up remotely for virtual queues, no matter if they are present at the business premises or not they will remain on their designated positions in the queue and will be called upon their turn. This means that if a customer plans to visit a bank branch or a customer service center they can sign-up while they are at home or work, and they will be issued an e-ticket which will contain their token number and the estimated time to their turn. Hence they can plan their visit with more freedom and convenience which definitely enhance their experience and raise their happiness and satisfaction.

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Significantly Low Wait Time

The wait time is one of the most impactful aspect of queuing process. Longer wait time will always hurt your customer experience and it will also cause increase in customer churn rate. Furthermore the longer customer wait time also causes unsatisfied service experience and it creates other management related problems such as it will impact your employee efficiency and resource management strategy. Furthermore there are two different types of wait time that we consider in queuing process. One is the actual wait time and the other most important phenomenon is the perceived wait time. The perceived wait time is just the imagination of human brain. The human brain works in very peculiar ways, if the waiting experience is not so good, the actual wait time could be 1 minute but we will feel it like 5 minutes or so.

That is why the perceived wait time is very important for customer experience. The biggest advantage of virtual queuing system is that it not only reduce the actual wait time but it also help minimizing the perceived wait time as well. As the customers and visitors can sign-up remotely and only required to arrive at the time of their turn so the wait time can be reduced to literally none. Even if a customer arrive before some time it would be marginal and they will have to wait very little which is why the virtual queuing system is one of the best in terms of managing customer wait time.

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Increase Customer Engagements

Customer engagement is another important factor of queuing management process. Engaged customers are tend to tolerate more wait time comparing to less engaged customers. For that different queue management systems use different techniques, for example a traditional digital queue management system offers digital signage screens and audio/visual announcement system which help engaging customers and keep them distracted from the waiting and reduce their stress. The digital signage are used to display the live queuing information along with multimedia content which keep users busy. Furthermore the audio/visual announcement system also keep announcing ticket number upon each customer call in multiple languages which also keep user distracted from the waiting and help reducing their stress and boredom.

The virtual queuing system offers all these features and on top of that it also offers a bi-directional communication channel. Since most of the customers and visitors who are using virtual queuing would spend very less time in waiting areas so the communication channels help businesses provide queuing information, updates, notification, alerts and also a chatting facility via dedicated chat boxes or WhatsApp, etc. The service agents can also update customers in case of any urgent update or change in their turn, etc. These all features help businesses increase the customer engagement which is essential for reducing the wait time stress. It greatly help improving customers’ waiting experience and increase their satisfaction.

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Improved and Automated Customer Flow

The customer flow management always have huge impact on the overall performance and efficiency of the queuing process. Each business offers multiple services, these services are offered through multiple counters. Sometimes businesses also multi-stepped services or stepped services which require a customer to visit at least two or more counters in order to avail a full service. Then there are different customer segmentations on the bases of the customers and visitors demographics and service type. For example, businesses could have dedicated counters for elderly visitors, people with special needs, VIP or Premium customers and service-bound segregation. All these segregations means that each customer group will be treated differently or could have different customer experience expectations.

On top of that in a real-life queuing scenario there are several other variables that can impact your customer flow such as longer service delivery time than expected, unwanted delay due to disputes, additional requirements or any such thing, all these factors can disrupt a regular customer flow. Hence the businesses need a mechanism in place which can order the customer flow by monitoring real-time queuing data and taking automated decision in order to ensure maximum customer flow is sustained. The dedicated administrative dashboard and smart software engine of the virtual queuing system will help businesses define and implement their queuing policy in a fully automated manner.

Hence the virtual queuing system monitors system usage stats and data from touch points to take real-time decisions which help improving the customer flow and improve customer experience by reducing their wait time and solving such problems.

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Improve Productivity and Employee Performance

For any business the productivity and performance are essential needs. Without achieving higher productivity and performance a business can never achieve higher profitability which is crucial for long term success and growth. The clipboard and pen based queuing system is slow, restricted and outdated. It cannot meet the needs of the modern market requirements. A digital queue management system on the other hand is very advanced, it improves productivity and performance and help businesses in resource management. A virtual queuing system can collect a variety of employee performance data which is also very helpful in improving employee performance. It can track all employee activities and their progress of the day.

On top of that it provides various performance KPIs and analytical tools which help management in evaluating employee performance and help them taking actions in right direction to improve performance and productivity. Furthermore in any queuing management scenarios the employees who are serving customers need to perform several pre and post-service tasks. These tasks can be time consuming, however, with the help of the virtual queuing system and its ability to integrate it with other internal systems and central information center can help reducing employee efforts and maximize their performance. It also keep employee free from any task related to customer flow and line management as all that is done automatically. Hence the employee performance and productivity if significantly improved.

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Collect Valuable Business Intelligence Data

The modern day and age is completely dominated by technology and data. The AI (artificial intelligence), big data, cloud, electric cars, smartphones and such technologies are so popular that every day we are reading something about them. The technology have completely revolutionized our daily work and personal lifestyle. The modern businesses are heavily relying on IT and data for their day-to-day tasks as well as for basing their strategies and policies upon it. The term business intelligence is self-explanatory. The business intelligence data is insight about the matters relate to your business. It could and should include both internal and external factors. The data gathering is crucial for any modern business as their most of the policies and strategic decisions will be solely based on the reports and inputs of their data analysts.

The traditional clipboard and pen queuing method is unable to collect the required data in fact it is nearly impossible to collect any business intelligence data with that method. The virtual queuing system on the contrary can provide a wealth of valuable business intelligence data. The virtual queuing system is capable of collecting system usage and analytical data from each and every touch point of the customer journey and it can also capture insight from other connected systems and tools. Furthermore the virtual queuing system also provide enriched analytical tools and customized reporting features which also help businesses getting the full advantage of the precious business intelligence data.

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Effectively Collect High-Quality Customer Feedback Data

Customer feedback data is vital for a healthy business growth. It help businesses acquire a deeper and better understanding of the customers, their behavior and market trends. Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE actively work on their customer feedback management campaigns. For that usually businesses use a dedicated customer feedback management tool. The virtual queuing system offer two different method to implement customer feedback management tools. You can integrate your CRM or existing customer feedback management tool with the virtual queuing system or you can utilize the in-built customer feedback management module of the virtual queue management system to collect customer feedback data.

It is far more convenient to conduct customer feedback campaign using the in-built customer feedback tool of the virtual queuing system. As the queue management system is already taking information about the customer and the service they need. Hence no need to input that data again during the survey. Which will make your survey small and it will definitely increase the response rate. Furthermore the customer feedback data can easily be analyzed with in-built analytical tools or it can be relayed to a third party system, CRM or any other customer feedback system or it can be integrated with the central information center for better data analysis and data sharing tasks.

See More: 5 Ways to Manage your Customer Service Queues

Conclusion

For any business managing queues and large influx could be a challenging task. For that businesses hire additional staff adopt modern practices and implement technologies. The queue management process is a very complicated process. Especially in Dubai and all around the UAE where the markets are very advanced, the customers are savvy and the competition is tough. Furthermore the customer experience has become a phenomenally important factor in any business’s success. It is not just in UAE but all over the world, the customers are willing to pay extra if they are provided with a better experience. That is why businesses need to focus more on customer experience and customer satisfaction.

When it comes to queuing management system the clipboard and pen queuing method is very old and outdated. It is limited, have several restriction, and this method doesn’t collect any business intelligence data. These are the reasons businesses decided to implement more advanced and technology based digital queue management systems. The virtual queuing system is the most modern and highly advanced form of a traditional digital queue management system. It not just only offers all advantages of a tradition queue management system but it also help boosting system efficiency and enhancing customer experience.

The virtual queuing system is a great tool to maximize the efficiency of your queuing process. It also help enhancing customer experience and it is a great tool to capture valuable business intelligence data. In this blog we have discussed why a virtual queuing system is better than clipboard and pen. We have listed the common problems and drawbacks of clipboard and pen based queuing process and we have enlisted the key advantages of the virtual queuing system. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to implement a highly customized and tailor-made virtual queuing system for your business please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

BLOG OF RSI CONCEPTS

Category: Queue Management System

What is a Modern Queue Management System?

Customer Experience: Long Wait Time

Customer Experience: Quick Service Delivery

Customer Experience: Better Service Quality

Customer Experience: Business Intelligence Data

Conclusion

What is a Digital Queue Management System?

Digital Queue Management System: Reduction in Customer Wait Time

Digital Queue Management System: Customer Journey Transformation

Digital Queue Management System: Boost Branch Efficiency

Digital Queue Management System: Collects Business Intelligence Data

Conclusion

What is a Queue Management System?

Why Businesses should Deploy Queue Management Systems?

Queue Management System Reduces Customer Wait Time

Queue Management System Improves Customer Experience

Queue Management System Improves Employee Performance

Queue Management System Reduces Cost

Queue Management System Collects Business Intelligence Data

How Queue Management System Improves Business

Queue Management System Benefits for Customers

Queue Management System Benefits for Service Agents

Queue Management System Benefits for Managers

Queue Management System Benefits for Head-Office

Conclusion

Queue Management System Reduces the Customer Wait Time

Queue Management System Improves Employee Performance

Queue Management System Offers Virtual Queuing

Queue Management System Collects Valuable Queuing Data and Business Intelligence

Conclusion

Implementation of Queue Management System

Benefits of Implementing a Queue Management System

Conclusion

Why Learning about Queuing Theory is Important for Businesses?

The Queuing Theory

The Steady State Queuing Behavior

The Importance of Queuing Discipline

The Measurements of the Queuing Theory

Conclusion

What is Modern Queuing?

Features of a Modern Queue Management System

Queue Management System Features: Digitalization and Automation

Queue Management System Features: Significant Reduction in Wait Time

Queue Management System Features: Support for Virtual Queuing

Queue Management System Features: Centralized Management

Queue Management System Features: Data Collection

Conclusion

Queue Management System for Events

Improve Customer Flow Through Event Registration Process

Integrate Virtual Queuing Features to Improve Customer Experience

Easily Manage Disruptions and Increase Customer Happiness

Queue Management System Provides Business Intelligence Data which Improve Planning and Management

Conclusion

Important Features of a Queue Management System

Features of Queue Management System: 1. Essential Hardware Components

Features of Queue Management System:2. Essential Software Components

Features of Queue Management System:3. Automated Customer Flow Management

Features of Queue Management System:4. Virtual Queuing

Features of Queue Management System:5. Third-Party System Integration

Features of Queue Management System:6. Centralized Administration

Features of Queue Management System:7. Maintenance, Scalability and Customization

Features of Queue Management System:8. Business Intelligence Data Gathering

Conclusion

What is Virtual Queuing?

Why a Virtual Queuing System is better than a Traditional Clipboard and Pen Method?

Common Problems with Traditional Clipboard and Pen Waiting Line Management

Advantages of a Virtual Queuing System

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Easy Remote Sign-up Features

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Significantly Low Wait Time

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Increase Customer Engagements

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Improved and Automated Customer Flow

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Improve Productivity and Employee Performance

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Collect Valuable Business Intelligence Data

Advantages of Virtual Queuing System: Effectively Collect High-Quality Customer Feedback Data

Conclusion