How Retail Queuing Solutions Benefit Stores & Customers

The retail experience has undergone a complete transformation over the past decade or so. Shopping, running errands, and dining out are optimized through automation, smart devices, and personalized experiences.

In response, customer expectations has shifted. Now, the minimum expectation is operational efficiency. People hate customer experiences that involve wasting time.

Customers can lose their patience fast, especially when they know that they can order what they want through an app and have it delivered straight to their doorstep.

So how do you deal with these raised expectations in the retail space? You’ll find out in this post.

Standing in a Queue Isn’t Always Necessary

Standing in line has been the standard way to wait for the things we need for a very long time. People were just used to it, until the era of instant gratification came.

Now’s the time to adopt modern methods of queuing that don’t involve shuffling forward one boring step at a time.

Retail Queuing Solutions Create Optimal Customer Experiences

Digital queuing is a method of managing queues that uses an app or management system to organize queues. This retail queuing solution takes advantage of automation and streamlines information for real-time decision making and data analysis.

This modern solution can help correct the inefficiencies in any type of queue, be it in a retail store, bank, quick service restaurant, or anywhere else where customers need to wait in a queue.

What Are the Benefits of Digital Queuing?

In a traditional queue, people either have to wait in line behind other customers, or take a number on a printed ticket or on their receipt.

Digital queuing allows customers to instead either watch a digital screen for their name along with an estimated wait time, or even receive a notification or text on their smartphone when their order is ready.

Reduce Perceived Wait Times

Having a digital sign that displays order times and a list of names lets the person waiting actually see how many tickets are in front of theirs. This can help reduce perceived wait times, which in turn goes a long way for customer satisfaction.

And the customers who are old school enough to be surprised by this organized new approach to queuing will be impressed.

Manage Customer Flow

With queues that move more efficiently, lines can be shortened and better organized. Then, staff can focus more on the one-on-one customer experience.

Gain & Analyze Queue Data

A retail queuing solution provides you with access to valuable metrics that you can analyze and use to improve your processes. This will allow you to create the best queuing approach you can based on hard data.

Where Can Retail Queuing Solutions Be Used?

This technology can be used for many different kinds of businesses. Here are just a few of the possible use cases.

At the checkout area

Screens can inform shoppers of which register is open when they’re next in line. On the employee side, a digital queue management system can help them organize who should be where and how many registers need to be open.

Dressing rooms

Retailers can install occupancy sensors in each dressing room that tie into a centrally located display that shows which rooms are empty in real-time. This can also be used to gather dressing room metrics and data.

Restaurant order screens

Order ready queuing streamlines information from customer ordering screens to employee-facing kitchen screens. Customers send their order and then see it displayed as being prepared, plus how many customers’ orders are in front of theirs. Meanwhile, kitchen staff indicate order progress as it comes.

Gather and Use Customer Data

There is new and powerful hardware these days that can go a long way toward identifying customers and managing customer content.

A facial recognition audience metric camera can do things like count traffic in front of menu boards, identify dwell times in front of menu boards, gather demographic information, trigger content based on all the above and change the menus accordingly.

Overall, retail queuing solutions provide a way to dramatically improve customer experience and make processes more efficient for employees in the process.