Managers can look out onto the floors to see what’s happening in their waiting lines and queues. And they certainly have the authority to call in more staff, open more queues, or redirect customers to under-utilized service points to help alleviate a queuing bottleneck. But the manual approach to queue management leaves a lot to chance at a critical point in the customer service experience. How can you convince the higher-ups that investing in queue management technology will remove the guesswork out of your management decisions and improve the quality of your customer experience? Here are three key ways to build your case:
1. Highlight the impact of queuing on customer satisfaction
The queuing experience impacts much more than you might expect. A 1992 study (Romsey) found that a majority of customers would change to another retailer just to experience shorter checkout queues. And research by Harris Interactive found 68 percent of customers leave because they think you don’t care about them. Regardless of what type of business you operate, a well-managed queue sends a signal to customers that you care about them and respect their time. The queue is often the make-it-or-break-it point of a customer’s experience and can easily affect the impression of the entire service encounter.
2. Point to improvements in productivity and efficiency
With intelligent queue management on your side, the productivity of service agents can be increased and staffing levels optimized based on the current and predicted flow of customers. Customer wait times can be carefully measured and managed to keep them within an acceptable range. The result for retailers is fewer cart abandonments and higher conversion rates. And for any business, fewer lost customers translates to higher revenue.
3. Earn customer loyalty
The customer experience and the queue are intertwined – if the queuing experience is bad, the customer will find a way to get what they need or want in a less stressful and more efficient way. Customers know which businesses have long waits and which are able to get customers in and out as painlessly as possible. Your business is more likely to see customers again, and more likely to benefit from their positive word of mouth, when you have a well-run queue. Use these three arguments to build a positive case to your decisions makers for an investment in queue management technology. And once you have, be sure to check out Qtrac iQ for real-time intelligent queue management.
