How Can Queueing Solutions Elevate the Customer Experience?

How Can Queueing Solutions Elevate the Customer Experience?

Managing customer expectations, including wait times and customer interactions, are critical for offering the best customer experience. With more customers than ever interacting through technology, it’s even more vital that businesses have queueing systems that keep customers engaged, waiting, and not giving up.

Which queueing systems work best? What are some of the finer points of these systems which companies should be aware of? Let’s take a more in-depth look at the ins and outs of various queueing solutions.

What is a Queueing Solution?

A virtual queue management system is perfect for online customers. Queueing solutions can include linear and non-linear traffic flows and lobby management, mobile, QR code-based, virtual, SPS updates, or appointment-based methods for managing customer service and wait times. Managing customers’ wait times, digitally or virtually, offers many more beneficial features than traditional queueing situations.

How Can a Virtual Queue Enhance the Customer Experience?

Few customers enjoy waiting in line. By digitizing and automating their waiting experience, customers are more likely to engage with customer service. They’re also more likely to show patience and gratitude if their experience is favorable and not a waste of time.

Empower Customers to Make Their Choices

A large part of positive customer service interactions has to do with public perception. If customers feel disregarded, under-appreciated, or generally dismissed, their loyalty to a brand can suffer. This is especially true if an experience they usually dread, like waiting on the phone for customer service, also becomes difficult and frustrating.

On the other hand, if they feel they have options and some level of control or leverage, there is a higher probability that they’ll continue to feel loyal and connected with a brand or company. Offering choices for how and where customers wait for their turn in customer service or checkout lines can be essential features which keep customers in your corner.

Reduce Actual and Perceived Wait Times

Once again, perception is a critical factor for customer satisfaction. If a customer can schedule a callback or an appointment for a future time of their choice, they’re far more likely to feel that their time waiting for customer service was well-spent and not squandered.

Wait times can be reduced simply by allowing customers to enter a digital queue. Customers can then move around to different physical locations while retaining their place in line. Then, they can receive a notification or update via mobile device or SMS text when it’s their turn.

Allowing customers to schedule appointments is beneficial for the customer and business. The customer representative can connect with the customer at a convenient time for both, isn’t squeezed between other customers, and can be front-loaded with information about the customer and their problems or concerns.

Improve Customer Service

Simply offering more comfortable and logical waiting methods will benefit customer service and relations. When talking to a customer who isn’t frustrated or exhausted from waiting in line, service representatives are more likely to help customers resolve their issues.

On the other side of the coin, queueing solutions can help employees, too. Working with service representatives who aren’t frazzled or short-tempered after dealing with irate customers is a better situation for everyone involved.

Give More Opportunities to a Business

Integrating digital marketing and shopping opportunities into the virtual waiting experience also benefits your business. Waiting without an actual line frees people to shop and discover more about your company.

For in-person queueing, there are options for the customer to be notified by phone or mobile device when it’s their turn. Not spending time in line can mean more time browsing the aisles or the store itself.

For virtual queueing, businesses can link to a website, send digital flyers, calendar updates, or even coupons for shopping with the company. Giving customers further incentives to remain loyal is always a positive play.

Provide Customers with Real-time Updates

Many customers want to know they haven’t been forgotten or overlooked. It’s also essential to offer a rough idea of how long the wait time may be.

Through queueing solutions, customers can receive real-time updates on their wait time and follow-up communications from customer service representatives. Customers want to feel like they have some control over these and other factors. Simply keeping customers aware of wait times is essential to perceived knowledge and choice.

Things to Consider When Choosing a Queue Management Solution

The right queue management tool needs to fit with the customer traffic a business regularly sees and the type of products or services the company offers.

Your Services

The services and products that are the primary focus for a business or company are essential variables for determining the types of queueing systems they can choose. Equally, the level or volume of customer service a company offers will be relative to the size and complexity of the queueing solution.

If a business is offering numerous online services and sales opportunities, there may be a necessity for multiple virtual counters to process customers. Some large corporations have hundreds of digital queueing lines, which help keep customer service streamlined and effective.

Equally, suppose a medium-sized business offers in-person services, such as house or office visits. In that case, offering appointment scheduling and customer callback features may be better. That way, customers can immediately respond and be informed when the service tech will visit.

In-built Virtual queueing

One of the most significant aspects of virtual or digital queueing is not physically standing in a line. Waiting on your feet, around other people, and being unable to pursue other tasks or plans is restrictive and less necessary than ever before queueing.

Giving customers chances to wait in line by scanning a QR code or visiting their website is a significant improvement to going to a physical location to enter the line.

Receiving updates on their status in line, without actually standing in a physical cable, further improves the overall waiting process.

With public health concerns still very much on many people’s minds, virtual queueing is also a safer and more conscientious method for waiting your turn.

Scalability, Customization, and Security

Using an unbranded generic queueing system is often more trouble than it’s worth. Customization increases the usefulness by focusing on the features and functions that will impact your business.

Designing a custom queue solution also helps with integration into existing systems. Additionally, proper queue management can reduce work and customer stress, resulting in fewer angry calls or interactions.

Business Intelligence

When customers or clients enter a digital or virtual queue, they usually offer up some credentials and personal data. This information, as well as the responses from the company and the result of the customer interactions, are all valuable customer data generated through queueing.

Once a customer has a case or personal profile established with the queue management tool, the capabilities for managing, anticipating, and resolving customer situations are vast. Crunching these organically-generated numbers may reveal the insight needed to propel a company to a new plateau.

Real-time Update

Customers appreciate knowing exactly their status in line. With queue management solutions, sending real-time updates for customer positioning and timeframe status are available, often as SMS messaging and a mobile app.

Remote Management

Answering questions, submitting documents, or completing paperwork are often part of waiting in line and receiving customer service. Using remote queue management allows customers and service technicians to interact and move the process forward without seeing each other in person or waiting until it’s their turn to handle the primary issues.

For the company side, remote management means customer files and information are available through mobile and digital devices from anywhere. Memos and directives from management can also flow through the communication features of queueing solutions.

Untethering from an office and its paperwork help the company to offer its customers and clients a higher level of service.

Queue the Customers

Successfully managing customers is the key to successful longevity. Helping to make waiting in line more enjoyable is an essential step in this process. At NEMO-Q, we focus on improving customer service and the wait time experience.

We service a variety of industries and are capable of handling companies of all shapes and sizes. Contact us today to discover how transforming the customer line can impact your bottom line.