Waiting in a queue is a reality that most of us must face on a daily basis.
However, the idea of queueing is linked to negative emotions, such as frustration, anger and irritation, and can impact heavily on your customer experience.
The average adult spends at least 5 hours and 35 minutes queueing each month, mainly due to businesses that regularly have long, unmanaged lines of customers waiting for a specific service.
But it doesn’t have to be like this.
Your business can adopt an effective queue management system to help address and solve the issue of long queues and frustrated customers.
In this blog, we’ll explain what a queue management system is and discuss some of the benefits that a comprehensive system can have for your business’ overall customer experience.
What is a Queue Management System?
A Queue Management System (QMS) is a set of factors that are designed to control customer flow and streamline the queueing experience.
In other words, it’s the process of breaking down the customer journey to determine how to make your operations more efficient so the wait time doesn’t seem so daunting.
Using technology, customer interactions can be analysed to assess and enhance the quality of their experience and boost satisfaction levels by eliminating congestion and managing your customer flow throughout the day.
How does a Queue Management System work?
While QMSs exist to help prevent the formation of long queues in your business, they are not simply limited to managing waiting lines.
The principle behind a QMS is to quantify the queue demand and inform your staff about it in real-time. This then enables your operations to run efficiently while reducing the customer waiting time.
Having a QMS in place also allows you to examine the following aspects:
- Customer population - This is the total volume of customer flow to paint a holistic picture of exactly how many customers are expected to come in.
- Arrival method – This defines how customers visit your business. By analysing this element, you can gain valuable insights into their arrival patterns.
- Service mechanism - This refers to the operational attributes of your queues, such as the average time your customers have to wait to be served, how many staff members are working, and other related information.
- Queue characteristics - This is the examination of the queue itself to understand the customer experience, starting from the beginning of the transaction all the way until the end. Through queue characteristics, you can also determine your customers’ expected behaviour, which is the key to alleviating frustration and ensuring waiting lines are moving at an orderly pace.
3 advantages of a Queue Management System for your business
Implementing a QMS can have the following benefits for your business:
- A Queue Management System makes your business versatile.
With a QMS, you can offer detailed multi-platform solutions for queues and customer prioritisation across devices. It also provides your business with the capabilities for appointment-based queue management.
A QMS will also give your business the power to reduce congestion and promote customer convenience.
- A Queue Management System offers flexibility.
A bespoke QMS solution is both versatile and flexible.
It allows you to personalise how customers can access and experience the services you offer.
From a management standpoint, a QMS will enable you to organise staff and delegate tasks based on service demand and operational goals, while also ensuring that your customer service will not be affected.
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A Queue Management System enables your business to be data-driven.
A significant benefit of implementing a QMS in your business is that the constant flow of data will provide you with plenty of valuable insights. This data will be instrumental in shaping future processes, as well as improving your service level.
A QMS will also help you to understand the frustrations and the common pain points that your customers have. This can be valuable knowledge as you continue to manage queues and optimise the customer journey.
In order to gain the full list of benefits from a QMS, it’s important to ensure that you implement the best QMS technology available today.
Our NEXA Queue Management System is built for businesses like yours
A QMS is a critical component of your overall customer service strategy.
To improve your customer experience and achieve high levels of satisfaction, it’s important to regularly assess and adapt your QMS in line with the evolving requirements of your customers, staff and other stakeholders.
At NEXA, we have queue management solutions that can help you to support your team, deliver excellent service levels and thrive in the ever-changing business landscape.
Do you need help to improve your customer experience?
If you’re looking to improve your business’ overall customer experience but you’re not sure where to start, NEXA is here to support you.
NEXA is an Australian company that delivers innovative solutions that streamline the customer journey. We offer tailored software that empowers our clients to improve their service by taking advantage of digital technology.
Reach out to us today to find out how we can help you to make your customer interactions matter.
