Is there anyone who finds queuing comfortable? Of course, not!! Standing in long lines is a waste of time for customers. Similarly, long customer queues seem risky for businesses making them lose potential clients.
Long lineups results in bad customer experience, particularly in the retail business. In a healthcare center, however, the situation may be different. Various organizations handle the line in different ways, which has an impact on how customers perceive the brand.
- The research says 74% of customers make the purchases depending on their previous experiences with the brand.
- In-store queues and long wait times cost businesses 10% of their profits.
All this simply showcases that businesses need to pay attention to everyday growing consumer expectations. Also, deliver optimal experiences by eliminating the concern of long queues and wait times.
Of course, we’ve all experienced the frustration of waiting in lines for certain services. As a result of these worries, most organizations have already begun investing in resources to improve customer perceptions. As a result, their brand experiences have improved.
You may now be considering how to decrease customer unhappiness and how to use queues to increase client loyalty. So, let us share with you the significance of improving customer service and ways to leverage long queues to keep customers delighted.
Why Improving Customer Service is Vital for Businesses?
Builds Customer Trust
Customers are more likely to trust a brand if they are satisfied with the services provided. Excellent customer service contributes to great experiences. As a result, you’ll get repeat business and referrals.
Boosts Customer Retention
It is always said that customer retention is essential as compared to attracting new ones. Hence, good customer service is effective to keep the customers returning. After all, when you know just not how to attract customers but the ways to retain them, the entire organization grows and not only the ROI.
Build a Better Brand Image
Increased business growth is a result of a positive brand image. Only by providing exceptional customer service can you build a good reputation.
Investing in sponsored marketing and social media activities are two common ways to keep clients coming back. Excellent customer service is the key to satisfied customers and a strong brand image.
Tips to Transform Long Customer Queues into a Positive Customer Experience
Set Expectations
It may be strange but is a fact: Known wait times are always better and feel shorter than the unknown ones. Here, setting up the wait time expectations can improve the customer’s queuing experience.
How to do so?
You can keep the website updated with chat or wait times so the customer can confirm their appointment before visiting the premises. You can integrate digital signage. It is a useful tool that entertains and engages consumers while waiting in lines. This tech solution acts as a marketing medium that uses multimedia screens, notifications, mobile apps, and messages. All this helps to keep customers notified about the expected wait times, promote new launches, or direct the visitors to the right counters.
Offer Virtual Queuing
If you ask what can make the long wait bearable: it is the freedom to go anywhere or perform other vital tasks of the day while waiting. Virtual queuing solution saves the customers from sticking to the physical lines. Visitors can easily hold a place in virtual queues and can get notifications about their turn. In addition, the customers can wait at their leisure, get the queue progress status, and know what their expected wait times are.
Overall, adopting a waiting line management system will eliminate long customer queues and crowded premises. Thus, resulting in delighted customers and staff. In addition, the customer experience will enhance and services will improve. After all, it is vital for overall business growth.
Make the Wait Valuable
Depending on your premise environment and size, you can have the TC screens integrated. These can help to keep the customer entertained while they wait to get served.
Display some weather news, sports, knowledgeable stuff as per the services, or any upcoming sale. Such screens can further be utilized to display the current offers to boost impulse purchases.
Another well-known trick that many retailers have been implementing to the queues is merchandising the goods. Showcase the promotional content. It will divert the mind of customers from wait times. Furthermore, will convince them to make instant purchases.
Also Read: Ways to Speed Up the Wait Time for Your Customers
Fair Queuing
Selecting the right queue in the store is quite a challenging decision. Also, most of the time, we all end up choosing the wrong one while watching other lines to progress faster.
Here, instead of taking and giving the stress of multiple lines, switch to single queues. LCDs placed beside the registration counter can help call out the names of people with the next turn. Thus, boosting customer service efficiency and inflow.
Customers will feel treated fairly and perceived wait times will reduce.
Enable Self-Checkouts
Automation has become the need for today and will remain a necessity in the future. When talking about queue management, self-service comes as the most exciting alternative to traditional checkouts. It won’t reduce the wait times but can give freedom to the customers over the checkout procedure. This will make them feel the queues are moving faster.
Provide Alternatives
People get scared just by seeing the length of wait lines. Hence, either abandon the purchase or begin finding alternate resources to meet the needs and lose your customers due to long queues.
Online chat functionality comes as a viable option. It eases the visitor’s inflow constraints. Also, the staff can easily handle multiple inquiries simultaneously without having to manage the huge crowd.
Besides, provide the options of call on the website as well. Create an FAQs section that is comprehensive, informative, and well-structured. All such resources will help customers neglect the long queues and get answers to their queries.
Ensure Your Digital And Brick-and-Mortar Stores Operate Together
Do you own a digital store? Ensure your business website functions rightly along with the physical store.
This is because modern consumers have a wide range of options and are not limited to brick-and-mortar stores only. They use several devices and multiple platforms for shopping purposes to avoid long customer queues as well.
Here, you can consider the option shared below:
Practice Click-and-Collect: Click-and-Collect is the service allowing shoppers to make a purchase online and pick from the physical store. Don’t you think it is convenient for customers!! It can attract traffic for the business plus the hassles of long customer queues will be eliminated.
Want to know how the click-and-collect strategy works?
Customers will place an order and pay for goods online. However, rather than waiting for the order to be delivered, they can visit the store to pick on their own. Thus, saving themselves from long queues and delivery charges.
In addition, omnichannel marketing comes as another alternative. It is also a successful queueing approach and acts as a physical store queue management tactic.
How Qwaiting Queue Management Software Eliminates Long Customer Queues?
Qwaiting is a queue management solution that allows people to virtually wait instead of standing in long lineups. People can schedule their visits and hold a place in online queues. As discussed above, virtual queues provide the freedom to wait anywhere the customers like to.
Your consumers can enjoy coffee, wait at home, or execute other tasks. Thus, helping you reduce the long customer queues and crowd in the premises.
A brief of how Qwaiting works:
- Shoppers can schedule an online appointment. Furthermore, they can join the queue on-site using the kiosks or via the website.
- The real-time alerts, SMS, and updates are sent. These depict the estimated wait time, line progress, and their place in the queue.
Besides all this, congestion is reduced along with the people saved from waiting in annoying lines to get the services. Nowadays, long customer queues no longer feel challenging or a waste of time. Also, the shopper complaints lower that boost the staff morale. After all, employees can only stay productive if queue management becomes easy. Thus, focusing more on enhancing customer experience.
Summing Up
To conclude, following all these tips will help improve customer experience and enable businesses to focus on business growth. Furthermore, delivering a satisfactory customer experience means the increased chances of word of mouth. Thus, resulting in good reviews and ratings. Investing in tech like virtual queue management is essential to enhance shopper experiences and convert visitors into loyal consumers.
So, make great customer services, delivery of quality goods, and implementation of modern tech the necessity for your business. For the rest, you can see how your business will get ahead of competitors over time.