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Five Reasons why you should adopt a digital queue management solution

Five Reasons why you should adopt a digital queue management solution

Deploying a digital queue management system is one of the best ways to bring automation to your business. According to WorkMarket 2021 In(sight) report, 78% of business leaders believe that automating tasks increases productivity for everyone involved. Moreover, it makes all offline businesses and phygital stores deliver exceptional customer service.  

Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of into why you need to adopt a digital queue management system: 

Keeps your visitors safe during this pandemic 

One of the biggest reasons you need digital queue management now is to successfully avoid crowds and adhere to social distancing. With features like online appointment booking, token system, virtual queue management, a queue management system can help you create safe and efficient customer workflows. 

Reduces real as well as “perceived” waiting time 

When we talk about a queue management system, we are talking about reducing time spent by customers at your business — but did you know a queue management system can reduce two types of time? One is real, and the second is the perceived time. For example, when you create unpleasant and complicated experiences for your customers, even though they have been at your business for a short amount of time, they would not feel so. A queue management system makes the experience quick and pleasant, thereby decreasing both the real and perceived time. 

Your staff’s best friend

A queue management system helps you manage queues on a case-to-competence basis. That means it automatically segments customers to the right kind of people at your business.  

This system also helps your staff track the influx of customers — when is the maximum influx, and when is the least. Also, token systems and appointments smoothen the end-to-end customer process, making your staff’s day at work easy and productive. They’ll also save a lot of time and energy on daily activities. This will help you reduce employee attrition rate and increase employee satisfaction. 

A good space for marketing 

Queue management systems require hardware like led screens and kiosks to show token numbers. You would also have apps to show notifications to the customers for them to keep track of their journey at your business. Both these spaces — desktop screen and mobile device can be used to showcase your marketing collateral. For instance, you can display various promotions, deals, discounts, and ads, of your business on them. You can display referral codes as well.  

Stirs good PR and marketing campaign for you

It does not matter how good your products or services are and how cost-effective you are for your customers. As long as you don’t have a good customer experience strategy in place, you won’t create happy customers. A queue management system will guarantee you, happy customers. And, happy customers are your most potent marketing machines. They can spur a barrage of positive word-of-mouth campaigns for you, increasing your social proof, customer acquisition, and eventually sales. 

We hope you find this article of actionable value, and you’re motivated enough get the queue management system your business always needed! 

Tried-and-tested Ways to Create Happy Customers & Boost your Business

Happy customers are a gold mine:  

  • Customers will pay as much as 18% more for good customer service. 
  • 49% of buyers have said that they made impulse purchases after receiving a more personalized experience.  
  • Businesses that earn $1 billion annually can expect to earn an additional $700 million within 3 years of investing in customer experience. 

This blog has mentioned 7 classic tips to easily create happy customers, regardless of your business size and type. Some might not be news to you; however, it’s always good to brush up on the basics. 

Have a clear vision and share it with everyone

 

Regardless of your organization’s size, all the members need to be on the same page when it comes to the short-term and long-term goals of the organization. As a leader, you must articulate the company goal and ensure that it remains the underlying driving force of all your employees and associates. 

Be people-centric 

 

Amazon has always branded itself as a people-centric company, and it’s apparent in the way it operates. One of the major reasons for Amazon’s success is because it keeps its customers first. Being people-centric means to be empathetic and skillful enough first to understand the needs and wants of the customers and then fulfill them. You can also find a solution for people and help them the way they thought they would never be helped. 

Respect your customer’s time and efforts

It’s imperative to ensure that the end-to-end journey of your customers is quick and seamless. More so for non-digital or digital businesses. For instance, banks, hospitals, automotive, restaurants, retail shops, etc., have to ensure that no queues are formed, no customer has to wait unnecessarily. Therefore, deploy queue management systems, ticketing systems, or visitor management systems to save your customers time. Also, these systems aid you with features like appointment booking, giving tickets, virtual queuing, and more to save effort. 

Stay relevant to the times

 

Kodak refused to adapt to digital cameras, Blockbuster lost to Netflix’s hyper-personalization, and Nokia took too long to make a smartphone. But, as a business person, you should always watch what’s in the wind and latch on to it. For instance, if you’re in a business that can’t go fully online — create awesome phygital experiences. The point is you can’t have a business that doesn’t use technology to make things easier for the customer! 

Invest in technology

To create such phygital experiences as mentioned above, you’ll have to invest in technologies like Custom Relationship Management (CRM) software, Queue Management software, visitor management software, Point of Sale (POS) software, and more. Investing in these technologies will only reap massive yields in both the short and long term. Delaying digitalization of your business will only be helpful to your fellow competitors. 

Educate and train your employees

 

First, you will have to educate your employees on the benefits of the new technologies or methodologies you’re bringing to the table. Don’t be surprised if you see some reluctance in your employees. When you have new technological interventions in place, it is important to offer proper training to all your employees. Carry out refresher training programs to retrain them and educate them about the new technologies you bring in place.  

Ask for feedback

 

The best thing is always to know how you’re doing. So always actively ask for customer feedback across various touchpoints. Here are some scores and surveys you can use:  

NPS: Net Promoter Score to see how many customers will refer your business to others.  

CSAT: Customer Satisfaction Score to see how many customers are satisfied.  

CES: Customer Effort Score to see how easy it was for customers 

We hope you found this quick recipe to create happy customers, insightful.  

Choosing a Queue management solution – 10 things to consider

Are your customers bored of standing in a queue? It’s time to choose a better queue management system to automate the process. But choosing a queue management system can be tedious especially when there are a lot of options available. Choosing the wrong one will cost you money and will result in the loss of customers if they don’t get a seamless experience. Here is a list of ten things that should be considered while choosing a queue management system

Virtual Check-in 

In these times of Covid where hygiene is everyone’s utmost priority, you surely don’t want to touch an iPad that tens of hundreds of people have touched. Virtual check-in kiosks help you add yourself to the queue while sitting at your home on your phone. Just visit the site and register yourself.  

Virtual queuing

Eliminating the physical aspect of standing in a queue is really simple in this digital era. Virtual queuing eliminates the need of standing in a queue, it saves visitors time. 

Cross-Platform Optimization

Queue management should be strictly web-based, it shouldn’t require any apps to save the struggle and time. This way it works on multiple platforms like PC, android, and iOS devices seamlessly. 

Centralized Dashboard

All you need is a centralized dashboard to manage your visitors. It should be accessible anywhere at any time. It is a huge time saver and one of the top features of the queue management system

SMS Services 

A queue management system is hard to imagine without an SMS system. Suppose if the internet is down and visitors want to get the latest updates, SMS is a lifesaver here. Real-time SMS updates help send service reminders, send out confirmations, time-alerts, etc. 

Real-time monitoring

It is not enough to just keep track of visitors, it is also necessary to keep track of things happening at your business place. Keeping track of staff, activities and traffic are equally important. It helps in finding new approaches to make business processes effortless and less complicated.

Service Intelligence

Customer service is the most important part of any business. But services always need improvement and customer feedback helps us in doing so, but customer feedback combined with data analytics can take your service to the next level. Data from the customer wait time, employee performance, servicing time, queue length, and many more factors help in analyzing the customer experience. 

Integration with CRM

You don’t want to buy a new CRM every time you buy new software for your company/organization, right? Integration of queue management system with your CRM is very important as CRM is a one-stop place for checking all your customer’s data. That is why this factor plays a major role while choosing a queue management system.

Customization

The queue management system should be customizable according to the preferences and demands of the customer and organization

Remarkable experience

For a customer, experience and journey are all that matters. Ticketing, queuing and services, all the processes should be seamless and effortless. This must be taken care of by the automated system. 

The above-given ten factors will play a major role in making the customer experience seamless and company processes more efficient. 

Appointment planner – 10 problems with traditional practices

Most businesses are going online these days. Business processes have become faster, advanced, and automated. Booking appointments offline is not something your customers are expecting. With the rise of the internet, it is necessary to provide online solutions for booking appointments.  

Here is a list of problems with traditional pen and paper booking systems.

Traditional practices are unproductive 

Imagine how much time is being wasted on noting down the details while booking an appointment. Imagine the number of possible errors made while booking an appointment. Every time the customer needs to update or cancel an appointment they have to call you. Every time one person has to call the customer for reminders. Doesn’t it sound unproductive? This time can be spent on doing a lot of other productive things.  

Appointment books are losing customers 

Customers these days want everything instantly, they want services to be available at their convenience. Offline appointment booking doesn’t work that way, customers have to be available at a specific time to book an appointment and it doesn’t go well for all the customers. It results in the loss of a customer.   

Loss of documents 

Sometimes due to an unorganized workplace, important documents like appointment books are lost. Customer data also gets lost which can cost businesses. The company might have to face legal trouble if some very important documents are lost. Pen & Paper can get you into a lot of trouble, so it is better to digitize appointment booking. 

No Performance tracking 

Businesses need to make continuous changes in business processes to make the customer experience better. Most business decisions these days are data-driven and it is not possible with traditional appointment booking practices. It is not possible to analyze this data so there is no way to track performance and make data-driven decisions.  

Poor customer service 

Using pen and paper causes management problems and it eventually results in poor customer experience. For example, suppose it’s 11 at night and the customer wants to book an urgent appointment for tomorrow morning, he still has to wait for the office to open, he cannot book it instantly. 

Less competitive 

We live in a digital era and using pen and paper for business processes shows a lack of management which gives your competition an upper hand to outrun you. Most people these days want to book an appointment online to save time and effort, so if you’re still using pen and paper, you’re already out of the league. 

No integration with CRM 

Offline appointment books cannot be integrated with the CRM software as everything is handwritten. It eventually results in a loss of revenue as you cannot understand the customer requirements.  

No Proper feedback channel 

Getting feedbacks on pen and paper is of no meaning is most of them go unread. Feedbacks are important for any organization and making changes according to them is a must. But on paper feedbacks are useless because there are no ways to properly analyze the issue which is backed by the data.

Appointments are unsafe

Due to the spread of Covid-19, there are chances of spread of infection while booking offline appointments. Going paperless is the only way out to be safe and secure. 

Pen & Paper processes are not environment friendly 

A lot of papers are wasted every year to book appointments. It is for one-time use only. A single SMS can do the same job more efficiently. The process is not environment-friendly. 

Do you still think using pen and paper for appointment booking will help you survive in this competitive world? If you do, you should rethink the idea of it. 

Smart Queue Management | An Every Modern Business Needs

A queue management system is a foundational technology that helps all offline and phygital businesses manage their customer footfall and avoid queueing like banks, restaurants, retail stores, hospitals, and more. This article will share a brief synopsis of what’s queue management system is and what it can do for your business.

What is a queue management system?  

As the name suggests, the queue management system is a technology-enabled system consisting of hardware or software that can enable businesspeople to effectively manage queues at their business, if not avoid them altogether.  

However, a queue management system not just manages or avoids queues but also optimizes and enhances the overall waiting experience from pre-service to post-service. It can also gather important data that can help you better customer experience and boost. 

What is the hardware you might need for a queue management system?

 

Some of the hardware a queue management system may need are: 

  • Ticket printers 
  • Digital signage 
  • Display screens 
  • Media Player 

What are the features of a queue management system? 

 

Some of the features of a queue management system include:  

  • Online appointment booking 
  • Time slot management 
  • Token generation  
  • Virtual queuing through a smartphone 
  • Apps for employees to serve customers 
  • Customer and staff real-time notifications 
  • Real-time monitoring of operations 
  • Customer feedback surveys 
  • Extensive statistics and analyses 

What are the benefits a queue management system can bring?

Let’s go into the exactitude of its benefits, especially in the times we are living in now: 

Helps you adhere to COVID-appropriate behavior

The absolute need of the hour is maintaining safe social distance in enclosed spaces. There is, anyway, lingering anxiety amongst people to go out in crowded spaces. And we all know that social distancing is hardly successfully followed. A queue management software works like a charm with features like appointment booking, streamline appointments, token systems, and virtual queueing.  

Helps you make data-driven decisions 

 

These systems offer you detailed reports to help you track the influx of customers with time. You will know which time slots see the maximum inflow and which services are asked for the most and least in that time frame. This helps in managing and distributing staff appropriately. It also allows you to identify issues and fix them.  

Decreasing the wait time as well as the “perceived time.”

 

When we talk about the customer wait time at the business space, we’re talking about two waiting times — the real and perceived waiting times. The latter is the more important one to reduce! If a customer has a difficult or unpleasant experience while at your business — they will perceive the time to pass slowly. So, having a queue management system in place will not only reduce the actual waiting time — but the good experience it created will also reduce the perceived time.

Creating happy customers  

 

 

According to a PwC report, 1 out of 3 would leave their loved brand after just one bad experience. Moreover, happy customers are your most powerful word-of-mouth marketing machine, which can help you gain social proof and boost sales massively.  

Some Use Cases

Here are some industries, a queue management system can help: 

Healthcare: OPD patients can book appointments online, stand in virtual queues for vaccination, and find where beds are available.  

Retail: Quick in-store shopping experience, efficient management of customers during sales and festivals, better phygital customer experiences. 

Banks: Make the customer-facing processes faster, gain leverage over competitors. 

Conclusion 

Forbes/Arm Treasure Data states that a massive 74% of consumers shop based solely on their experiences. And, according to Siegle+Gale, businesses lose $98B because they fail to provide “simple” experiences to their consumers. A queue management system is one of the most effective and much-needed systems for offline and phygital stores. This technology will help you meet the expectations of a modern-day consumer who almost does everything from the smartphone!