MULTIQUEUE IMPROVES QUALITY OF WAIT TIME
How Queuing Systems help customer service
In today’s competitive business environment, it is important to stay ahead of the game and
your competition. Often, the competitive advantage one business has over another may seem
insignificant but the results are anything but. Studies have shown that increasing the load time
of an e-commerce site by as little as 1 second can drive consumers away and few will ever
return. In this article, the author points out that Amazon concluded that if they slowed down
their page’s load time by 1 second, it would cost the online retailer approximately $1.6 billion!
Small details matter, sometimes even seconds! Put simply, our attention spans are getting
shorter and shorter.
There is another important statistic to pay attention to. Studies have shown a correlation
between the time a customer spends in your store or business versus how much money they
spend. It’s simple; the longer they stay, the more they spend.
So how do you reconcile that fact that most people are becoming less patient and yet keeping
them in your store longer will increase your sales? After all, you don’t want to agitate them
with slow customer service and you can’t hold them hostage. The answer is to improve the
quality of the time that they spend at your business. This is where a queuing system like
MulitQueue can help. Let me explain.
When a customer enters your store, they are there for a specific reason. Maybe they are trying
to speak with a representative about an issue or they are simply there to investigate a new
product. Busy lines at a customer service desk or waiting to speak with a sales associate means
a lot of waiting around….. and getting irritated. But what if they could be checking out your
products while they wait?
Recently I had to get my cell phone serviced (it really needed to be replaced). When I got to the
store they were really busy and so was I but this had to get done. I got in line and waited my
turn knowing I had a hundred other things that I had to do that day. Although waiting was
inevitable, the time I spent waiting could have been spent better. What if I could have been
checking out other products while waiting to be called? It certainly would have been a more
pleasurable experience than being wedged between strangers while waiting to take care of
something I really wished I didn’t need to take care of in the first place.
MultiQueue can help to ease the pain while encouraging your customers to shop around. This
queuing system prints out a ticket with a number for the customer while also sending that data
to a web interface that allows the customer service rep to know how many people are waiting
to be serviced, who’s next and it can even be customized to inform the staff about what the
customer is there for. In the meantime, the customer will be able to reserve their place in line
while looking around your store. When you are ready for them, you can simply call them by the
number on their ticket. Checking people in and out of the system is easy and it keeps statistics
and reports so you know how long your customers are waiting.
It may seem a bit cliché to say, “time is money,” but keep this in mind. People use clichés
because more often than not, because they are true. MultiQueue can improve your customer’s
experience which will improve that customer’s perception of your business. It’s the details that
separate you from your competitors.