List of 5 Prerequisites of Queuing System

A queuing system is a basic necessity these days. All of the businesses that are operating in Dubai or any other part of UAE are utilizing some kind of queuing system to manage their customers and visitors. Basically, the queuing system is used to streamline customer flow and to manage customer experience throughout the entire customer journey. Which makes it a very important business tool. The customer journey and customer happiness are crucial for success. If a brand has a strong base of happy and satisfied customers, it will gain a good reputation and a positive brand image. The happy and satisfied customers are also the most loyal customers. And customer loyalty plays a vital role in any business’s success. Loyal customers tend to do repeated business with the brand, which ensures steady growth. Another great advantage of happy and loyal customers is that they tend to promote the brand among their friends, family, and colleagues. This further improves the brand identity and portrays a very positive brand image. If a brand has a good reputation and a positive brand identity in the market it can gain more from less effort. Less marketing efforts tend to convert more leads if a brand has a very good brand identity and vice versa. That is why queuing systems are very important for a business.

The purpose of this blog is to aid our audience in making a queuing system decision. As in Dubai and all around the UAE there are so many different queuing system providers and a variety of different queue management system types are available, it could get confusing for most of the businesses while deciding the best queue management system and the best vendor for their project.

Here is a list of 5 prerequisites of the queuing system:

1. Define Objectives

Like any other IT project or any general initiative, the very first thing we do is that we define objectives and expected outcomes. Similarly, with a queuing system, we also have to define the objectives and expectations from the system. In the case of a queue management system, the desired results are improved customer experience throughout the customer journey and customer satisfaction. There must be some research done beforehand and some stats are important to understand. For example, the customer churn rate and customers who leave without getting serve are two major issues in Dubai and all around the UAE. The customer churn rate or the customer who never do business the second time is a big problem for business to sustain growth and the customers who signed up for the queue and then leave without getting served or without making a purchase are the even bigger problem and results in a variety of problems for a business. Several studies and surveys have shown that an average customer can wait up to a maximum of 13 to 14 minutes, wait time any longer than that could stress them out which results in a very bad customer experience.

In the above-mentioned scenario, the objective should be to reduce the customer churn rate and ensure all the customers reach the counter who signed up for the queue. Similarly, there are so many problems or scenarios a business could have faced in Dubai and all around the UAE. The objectives are defined to address a particular problem. There could be several objectives and any efficient solutions should be able to achieve several objectives. In the case of a queuing system, the primary objective is to improve the customer experience and employee performance to improve profitability. The secondary objective could be to collect vital business intelligence data to help businesses in making future decisions and policies. This is how objectives should be defined before acquiring any queuing system.

2. Understand How a Queuing System Works

Once the objectives are defined the next step is to fully understand how a queuing system works, and how it can be utilized to achieve those objectives. As modern-day’s queue management systems and queuing solutions have lots of advanced features which are very helpful. As we all know the general behavior of everyone not only in UAE but all around the world has been changed, people are more adoptive towards digital and electronics solutions. The customer behavior has been completely changed. The customer’s expectations from a brand are completely changed. The ways businesses were interacting with customers and visitors prior to the pandemic have been changed completely. The year 2020 was a huge change in service-based industries and the year 2021 is the year when businesses are trying to keep up with the changing trends and customers’ needs by implementing new strategies and solutions.

Here is a list of basic components of a queuing system:

Ticket Dispensing Kiosk Machine
Digital Signage to display queuing information and to play multimedia content
Counter Displays or Counter Plates
Audio Announcement System
Signs and stanchions to route the customer flow (mostly for large setup or stepped service delivery)

Here is a basic workflow or customer journey of a traditional queue management system or queuing system:

Step 1. Customers and visitors signed up for the queue usually using a ticket dispensing kiosk
Step 2. Customers and visitors wait in the queues or in the waiting areas
Step 3. The agents or servers do the customer calling and make announcements
Step 4. Customers and visitors arrived at the counter and get the service done
Step 5. Customers and visitors leave the premises (in some cases they are being asked to submit their feedback before leaving)

That was the traditional customer journey with a traditional queuing system.

However, these days, when customers are more concerned about their health and safety, and wellbeing, businesses had to offer them some alternative methods to ensure social distancing and other regulations in place to build the confidence of their customers and visitors. This suddenly boosts the popularity of Virtual Queuing methods and techniques.

Here is a basic workflow or customer journey of a virtual queue management system or virtual queuing system:

Step 1.Customers and visitors signed up for the queue remotely, without being present at the premises
Step 2. The customers and visitors can wait outside, or at home or in a nearby store or even in the parking lot, whatever and wherever is convenient for them
Step 3. The customer calling and announcements are made through both traditional and untraditional methods, such as via smartphone application, or a web page, or SMS or any other medium, usually multiple digital mediums are used to alert customers and visitors about their turn
Step 4.Customers and visitors arrived at the counter and get the service done, usually, there is literally no or very little wait time inside the branch is witnessed
Step 5. After getting the service done, the customers and visitors leave the brand, the customer feedback can be collected in both traditional and untraditional or digital ways too, such as via smartphone application surveys, or survey links, or emails, or SMS, or any other digital medium

The problem here is that most of the industries and businesses can easily adapt to the new modern-day virtual queuing but still there are many businesses that can’t. So, it is important that you understand how both queuing systems work. Then you can decide which system would be better for you as per your needs and objectives.

Furthermore, there are several other sub-sets or types of queue management systems that are available in the market. Some of them are general-purpose and some of them are purpose-builds for a specific industry. For example, the dedicated queue management system for the healthcare sector, or for the educational institutes, and so on. One of the best aspects of a queue management system or queuing system is that it can be customized as well. So, you can also choose features from various different types and merge them in a customized solution.

3. Understand your Environment

Once you established a basic understanding of queuing systems and their types the next step is to understand your environment where you will going to install a queue management system. Here are certain things that should be considered while analyzing your environment:

How many entrances are there?
How many counters are there?
What is the size of the waiting area?
What type of setup do you have? (Square/Rectangle, Round, or Irregular)
Do all customers and visitors in the waiting area face the same direction while sitting?
Is there any dedicated counter or VIP/Premium/Special counter?
Do you have any service which requires multiple counters? (Stepped Services)
In the case of stepped services, do all the counters are located in the same hall or your customers have to go to another hall or floor or something?

And things like that. This will not only help you identify the best queuing solution for you but this information will also help you to keep the cost at a minimum by acquiring only the needed components. For example, the facility size and type will decide how many ticker dispensing units and digital signage are required and what should be the quantity of the sound system to make the announcements, etc.

4. Plot your Environment in a Queuing System Scenario

Once you have a better understanding of your environment and the customer journey. The next step is to put yourself in the place of your customers and visitors. Imagine the queue management system installed in your premises or just simply mimic it. There are certain things that you should understand, for example:

How convenient it is to go through the customer journey?
How easier it is for the arriving customers and visitors to spot a ticket dispensing kiosk and how convenient it is to reach it even in case of rush hours when the facility is operating at its maximum capacity?
Check the waiting area and see which locations or spots are more visible to place digital signage at?
If you would be a customer or visitor and your ticket number is called, how convenient it is to find your assigned counter anywhere from the waiting area?
Do you need extra signs and directions to direct the customers and visitors to certain counters?
Check the entire customer journey for all services and for all types of customers and visitors, for example, how better the customer journey is for premium customers?
Check everything is in both the regular and busiest hours’ scenarios.

And certain such things will help you build up the most efficient customer journey. Plotting various different scenarios will be very helpful. This way you can improve the customer journey to utilize the maximum potential of your premises. This will also help you to purchase only the required equipment.

Read More: Queue Management Challenges 2021

5. Analyze Customer Journey Improvements

Once you have finished plotting a queuing system in your environment, then think from different users’ perspectives. Try to quantify how your queuing system could improve the customer journey. What benefits your customers can get from the new customer journey. Try to analyze each and every touchpoint and the complete user experience throughout the entire customer journey. This will help you further optimizing and improving the queuing system you are planning to avail. Think about what else can be included to further improve the customer journey? How various processes can be shortened? How the entire setup will improve your employees’ efficiency and productivity. Analyze the customer journey in various situations, such as peak hours, peak days, fewer customers, crowded, most popular services, and such things will help you analyze the system and how it can improve the customer journey by improving and automating various processes and steps of the service delivery.

Another thing to consider here is that how the queuing system is impacting your staff and agents. Definitely, any automation or solution is basically designed to improve the efficiency of the employee who is operating it, so does the queuing system too. The queuing system significantly reduces the workload of the agents and staff and improves their efficiency. More agents can serve more customers in a single shift. As most of the processes are either fully automated or semi-automated so the agents/servers can easily focus entirely on the customers. This enables them to improve the service quality as well. Which further improves the customer journey and customer experience.

Conclusion

Here in Dubai and all across the UAE, almost every business is utilizing one way or another to streamline their daily customer flow. The market is very competitive, if you fail to maintain a certain standard of customer experience and customer journey you will soon going to lose valuable customers. The queuing systems are an excellent tool to control, manage and improve customer experience throughout the entire customer journey. The queue management systems not only improve customer journey but they also aid staff and employee in improving their efficiency and work quality. The queuing system streamlines the customer flow, manages various aspects of the customer journey automatically, reduces the wait time, and speeds up the service delivery processes. This means less work for employees and agents/servers. The agents/servers can focus more on serving customers which significantly improves the customer experience. Happy customers always remain loyal to their brands and provide a strong foundation where a business can stand to make the next move up.

However, when it comes to choosing a good queuing system for your business there are so many options available. Especially in Dubai, UAE there are tons of different types of queue management systems, and a lot many vendors are also available to choose from. That is why it is critically important to be prepared before acquiring any queuing system. The purpose of listing 5 prerequisites of the queuing system was to help our audience and customers to choose the best option for them. If you follow these 5 key points, you can easily find a suitable and cost-effective queuing solution that can help you to generate more business over time. It is always better to consult a professional for such projects. RSI Concepts is a leading queuing system provider in Dubai, UAE with hundreds of satisfied customers. Feel free to reach out if you need any help with your next queuing system project or any customer satisfaction solutions. You can contact us through our Contact Us page or simply leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

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