Businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are very active in adopting to modern solutions and leveraging technology to improve their operational performance. Tough competition and abundance of options available to customers can have huge impact over businesses’ approach and strategy. For service sector the biggest challenge is extended waiting time long customer service queues. Understanding the queues and the customers is absolutely crucial for a service-based business. The poorly managed queues and long wait time not only impact the customers but it also have huge impact on the employee performance. Which in return cause double effect and ruin customer experience. In today’s modern world, the customers will never have a second thought before moving to another service provider. Especially in Dubai or anywhere else in UAE where the customers usually have a lot of options available in the same area they will usually not give you a second chance. That is why managing queues and improving customer experience is crucial for a business’s success.
Regardless of industry, the long waiting time and customer service queues can have devastating effects on your repute and brand image, no matter how large or small your business is, no matter how cost-efficient your products/services are, if your customers are leaving unhappy, you can never sustain growth and success. The unhappy customers will talk to other people about their bad experience which will ruin your brand’s image, furthermore your marketing campaigns will become costly and the return will become smaller, which will rise the cost of onboarding a single customer. Eventually it could be catastrophic for your business. In this blog we will discuss how businesses can easily manage their queuing and reduce customer wait time using a smart queue management system solution. The queue management system will also help you improving your customers’ waiting experience and will help you improve your brand image and customer satisfaction. The queue management system have offers many perks which can help a business to monitor and improve the performance of their service centers.
1. Automate Customer Flow
The automation drives efficiency in any system. Similarly the automation of customer flow with a queue management system improve the queuing process and make it more efficient. Traditionally the customers wait in long waiting lines, which cause stress and several other problems. The customers tend to complain a lot about manual queues. The queue management system is a digital tool which can automate the customer flow by allowing them to use automated customer signup and flow processes. The customers can utilize the interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk to sign-up. The interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk can also collect basic information if needed such as what service the customer is interested in, or customer identification can be done at this stage, etc. Such information help the queue management system to implement the company policy and priority protocols if needed. Furthermore the queue management system sing-up the customers for a virtual queue, which means they don’t have to wait in physical customer service queues, in fact the can relax in the waiting areas and wait comfortably. This help improving customer experience and increase their satisfaction.
2. Reduce Customer Wait Time
The customer wait time is the single most important metric in the queuing systems. The customer wait time have significant impact on customer’s mind, experience and service quality. Longer wait time cause stress and frustration and also cause in increase in employee workload. The queue management system is based on an AI (artificial intelligence) based highly efficiency and smart software application which can collect business intelligence data and it is also capable of analyzing the data in real-time. This ability also allow the queue management software to take decisions in real-time which improve the customer experience and help reducing the average customer wait time which in return cause reduction in customer service queues. The queue management system can analyze the historic data of the system and it can accurately estimate the customer wait time. Which help it to take customer through the route where they have to wait less. The automation plays very well here, due to automation the employees are highly focused on the service delivery which expedite the customer flow and the highly managed queues help reducing the customer wait time.
The biggest problem with manual or poorly managed queues is the longer wait time. In traditional queuing management the customers will have to wait in the physical lines, which itself cause a lot of stress, furthermore there are line jumpers, and some customers who think other are prioritized by the staff and there are several other issues which cause frequent disputes. This require businesses to deploy more employees and it also keep the customer service agents engaged in non-productive activities such as managing the queues, answering to customers’ quires and solving disputes, etc. All this hustle slow down the customer flow, during the peak hours the staff can easily get overwhelmed which further deteriorate their efficiency and result in extended wait time for the customers which means longer customer service queues. The digital queue management system not only prevent all these problems but it also help speeding up customer flow and reducing wait time by automatically routing customers to the fastest path, reducing the customer stress and workload of the employee which also result in quicker service delivery.
3. Prioritize Different Customer Groups
Another important thing to consider while managing queues is to organize and arrange different customer groups on the bases of their priority. In any service center a business usually offers multiple services, furthermore the businesses also have different policies and protocols for different types of customers or customer groups. For example in the banking sector the corporate customers will have different services than the individual customers, same as the saving account is different from the current account, etc. All these different services and different customer groups need to be organized and treated differently, which can cause issues and disrupt customer flow. Therefore the queue management system software offers an intuitive administrative dashboard which allow the businesses to configure all these protocols and perimeters. Thus the queue management system can automatically segregate different audience groups and take them through their designated route. Furthermore there are customers with special needs, there could be a different process for the elderly customers, and the VIP or premium customers need different level of attention and services, all this can be managed automatically with the digital queue management system which definitely reduce customer wait time and improve their experience.
4. Improve Employee Efficiency
Employee efficiency plays crucial role in customer experience and customer flow. No matter how effective your queuing strategy is, if your employees are not working at a good efficiency then the customer experience and satisfaction goals can’t be achieved. There are several factors that impact employee performance, especially during the peak hours, when the customer influx is high, the poor queue management cause a lot of problems which keep the employee distracted from their primary tasks. The crowd formation and complaining customers can greatly reduce the efficiency of the employees. The digital queue management system can significantly boost the employee efficiency by reducing their efforts and automating several processes of the customer journey. Furthermore the queue management system can be integrated with internal databases and other enterprise tools which enables it to help service agents in pre-service and post-service activities to reduce their efforts. The queue management system can automatically reroute customers to less busy counters to maximize the customer flow and to balance the employee workload. It also keep track of various performance metrics and employee KPIs, which is also helpful in improving employee efficiency and productivity.
5. Virtual Queuing and Online Booking
The virtual queuing is another remarkable feature of a modern digital queue management system. The virtual queuing allows businesses to integrate several remote channels in their queuing processes and help them further reduce the customer wait time. In fact the virtual queuing can literally reduce the wait time to none. The virtual queuing allow customers to sign-up virtually via remote channels and mediums such as Email, SMS, Queue Management System Smartphone Apps, QR Code, Website, Customer Portals, WhatsApp, etc. All these channels offer freedom and flexibility to the customer which can greatly enhance customer experience. The virtual queuing allow customers to sign-up without physically being present at the business and allow them to arrive only when their turn came, hence they can get immediately served and they don’t have to wait. The online booking feature allow customers and visitors to utilize an online channel such as website, customer portal or queue management system mobile apps to book a time slot for their visit. It also provide them previous queuing data, current status and expected future footfall which help them to book the most suitable slot with less expectancy of delays. These features can greatly reduce the customer service queues and help improving customer experience.
Conclusion
The customer service queues can be a great challenge for service-based industry. The businesses who are in service industry they have to deal with queues at all customer facing channels, especially when it comes to customer service centers this challenge become a serious liability. Poor queue management or longer customer wait time can not only make your customers unhappy but it can completely ruin your business’s reputation and image. According to several studies the unhappy and unsatisfied customers are most likely to never return to the same business, on top of that the unhappy customers tend to share their bad experiences with other people which could be even more damaging to the business. That is why a great queuing strategy is needed. A queue management system is a very powerful tool it help businesses effectively implement their queuing strategy and it also help them to make changes in the processes. The queue management system can completely automate the customer journey, queuing process, customer routing, and customer flow which can greatly increase the efficiency and efficacy of the process.
Furthermore the queue management systems are a great source of collecting valuable business intelligence data. It can also help businesses significantly improving employee performance and improve the resource management of the business. In fact a queue management system can reduce the number of employees by half to handle same customer footfall. Which in itself is a very significant for long term strategy and profitability. RSI Concepts is a leading queue management system provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn anything about the subject or if you want our help to setup a highly cost-efficient and customized queue management system to boost the performance and quality of your service center, 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.
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