Queue Management System for Telecom Sectors in UAE

Every business whether it is a telecom service provider or any other service provider needs a great customer experience strategy to achieve maximum customer satisfaction. A queue management system is a combination of software and hardware components designed to efficiently manage the walk-ins and customer flow in the service center. The queue management system have in-built intelligent algorithms and programmed logics, which enables it to direct and route customers to the skilled representative or agent to cater their needs and requests. Different stakeholders take queue management system differently for example the customer experience department take it as a customer experience management tool, the HR would see it as a customer service agent’s performance monitoring tool, the IT will see it as a data sharing tool, and so on. That is another reason all modern queue management system also provide facility to integrate with third-party system to improve data sharing and functionalities. For a telecom sector a queue management system performs various tasks and aid various business processes.

For telecom businesses customer retention is extremely important. People tend to switch very quickly if they had a bad customer experience. That is why it is crucial to address the issues that are impacting customer experience within the customer support and service centers. In any public dealing office the most important task is to manage the customer flow and queues. The customer journey is always assessed on the bases of wait time and customer efforts. If a telecom business offers an effortless customer journey then the customers will automatically feel better about it. The telecom service centers and offices always offers multiple services and they have different priority levels for the customers and visitors. All this could be confusing for the customers and visitors. It also require more efforts from the staff to keep everything in order. However, with a queue management system all this can be automate and digitalized. The telecom business can easily reduce the customer efforts while effectively minimizing the workload of the customer service agents and other employees as well. It has double positive affect on the customer journey and customer satisfaction.

Although it may sound simple but it isn’t as that simple, in this blog we will discuss the queue management system and its features and how a telecom business can benefits from them to ensure a long term and sustainable growth.

Queue Management System Reduces Customer Wait Time

The customer wait time is the most influential factor in customer experience and customer journey. The studies have shown that almost all of the customers start getting stressed and annoyed after waiting for only thirteen minutes. It means that the best scenario is to somehow reduce your wait time to thirteen minutes only. Which is not possible in most of the cases, especially during the busy work hours. That is why businesses use queue management systems. The queue management system not only reduce the customer wait time to the minimum but it also help improving the customer wait experience which reduces the effects of waiting and make them able to comfortably wait for longer time. The customer experience in the telecom sector starts with a simple sign-up process. That is also the first interaction of the customer with the queue management system. The customers sign-up using an interactive self-service kiosk. The kiosk dispense a ticket which contains customer’s number in the queue, estimated time to turn and any other related information.

The sign-up kiosks are also used to collect customer information, for example, for the telecom sector the customer data can be fetched from the customer’smobile number or landline or by simply inputting the customer ID. This way the queue management system already get the customer ID and it can push that data along with any other relevant data that is required to aid the customer service agent, this can simplify the service delivery process and reduce customer wait time. Every queue management system comes with large displays or signage screens, these displays are installed strategically on places where at least one screen is always in view of the customers who are in the waiting area. These screens are used to display the live queuing information including the currently serving ticket, the next few in line, the estimated time for each ticket and any other information that the business wants to display. On those screens the businesses can also run multimedia content which keeps user engaged during the waiting time.

In addition to that audio announcements are always made to alert the customers and they are also a good distraction from the waiting. Such things help reducing the customer stress during the wait time by simply distracting them and keep them busy. Hence the customer don’t mind waiting for even much longer than the thirteen minutes.

Queue Management System Automates Customer Journey and Customer Routing

The customer journey management is basically customer flow management and customer routing, which could get complex and difficult if managed manually. With a queue management system the customer flow management and customer routing is completely automatic. The servers/agents and the staff doesn’t have to worry about any of these tasks and they can focus more on their primary tasks which also improve their performance. For telecom sectors usually a single service delivery is done on a single counter, however, in some cases stepped service delivery is also needed. Then there are certain other conditions for example let say a few services are general and can be offered by any counter, some services are more technical in nature and can be offered by only 2 out of 5 counters and so on. All these conditions makes customer flow and customer routing a bit difficult for manual management. However, with a queue management system all these conditions can be managed automatically.

A queue management system can monitor and log all the activities, it can track employee performance, busy hours, service delivery time and on the bases of these details and a few other parameters it can accurately assess the current work load. On the bases of this understanding a queue management system automatically route customers during their wait time. Let us take the above example again, let say a customer opted for a service that is a general service, which can be offered through all five counters, however, the two exclusive counters are not busy and the three general counters are more busy, then the queue management system will start sending customers to the exclusive counters to reduce the customer wait time and to balance the workload of the counters. The customers who are signing-up for the exclusive services must be prioritized on the exclusive counters. Similarly the queue management system can also implement other company policies such as customer priority and service priority. Exclusive customers, such as VIPs, Corporate, Customers with special needs, etc. would be treated on the priority bases and so on. This is how a queue management system can manage the customer flow and customer routing automatically with the help of in-built intelligent algorithms.

Queue Management System Improves Employee Efficiency

Most of the time in public offices or businesses where the daily walk-in is higher, the staff is always engaged in managing the queues to ensure smoother customer flow. Moreover the queue management system can automatically balance the work load of the employees which improve their work quality and reduce their stress. The queue management system can also identify the customer and/or service they are seeking for, and on the bases of that information the queue management system can prepare the server or agent dashboard beforehand and let the agent focus on the quality of service. This could save a lot of time of the server/agents which help reducing the overall customer wait time. The automation and digitalized control of various business processes help reducing many customer journey steps and also reduce the need of human resource. As most of the processes are automated and doesn’t require any human assistance, the telecom sector limit their number of staff for each branch. The queue management system also help servers and agents by reducing their efforts and aiding the service delivery process which enables them to serve more customers in a single shift. Which obviously reduce per-service delivery cost and improve operational efficiency and profitability.

Queue Management System Supports Third Party System Integration

If any business want to get full advantage of any system the integration is a must have feature. The digital world is way too connected and integrated than we can ever imagine. For any businesses if they want to achieve the maximum efficiency the ultimate challenge is the data flow, communication and updated information. This is applicable for both the human and the digital tools as well. A queue management system allow businesses to integrate it with any other third-party tool or enterprise solution. This data integration is usually done via APIs or secure web services. The data integration allow one system to talk to the other and then get their response, for example, in case of a telecom businesses if they are asking their customers to input their mobile number or any customer ID, the queue management system must have to verify it, which it does by communicating with the system that holds and maintains the customer’s ID data, this integration could be direct or it could be via centralized information center. The purpose is to achieve certain functionalities that help improving customer experience and overall efficiency and productivity of the business.

Queue Management System Collects Business Intelligence Data

One of the most important aspect of any business strategy is the information. Informed decisions always result in good outcome. For a telecom business or branch it is extremely crucial to know its customers, their psychology, their needs and expectations, and the market trends. A queue management system can do a lot more than just managing customer flow. It can keep track of all touch points of the entire customer journey along with various employee KPIs and other system stats and user data that can help businesses to analyze and asses their existing business processes, policies and capabilities. A queue management system can accurately track the entire activity of the day, it can track the average service delivery time for a particular service and also individual service delivery time. It can accurately track which customer journey step took how much time and where bottle necks were formed. A queue management system can also track employee KPIs and their performance, by accurately logging and recording the stats of each user interaction form various angles.

The business intelligence data is too much to be processed by a human being. That is why a queue management system also provide in-built data analytical tools. Which can sort this data into simpler reporting formats. There are several different levels of the reports, for example, the high-level management might only be interested in the number of happy and unhappy customers, the branch managers might be interested in employee performance and wait time, and the customer experience department might be interested into the minute details of each bad interaction. For all those needs the queue management in-built tools to evaluate, assess and analyze the business intelligence data as per the needs. The reports generated from the queue management system can be used by the management to easily highlight the areas of improvements, the market trends, customer’s needs and expectations. The telecom businesses can use this information in planning for the future and improving things that are impacting customers’ experience.

Conclusion

The telecom businesses are the one with a huge daily walk-ins. Most of the time the customers who visit a telecom service center they have to wait for a little longer comparing to other businesses such as banks or hospitals. That is why a telecom business needs a very efficient customer flow management and customer experience strategy. If customers are having bad experience they will not only switch but most likely they will also share their experience with the others. Which brings negative brand reputation. On the contrary a good customer experience promote a great brand image, it earns customer loyalty and help business to grow. That is why the customer experience is considered the backbone for the growth. A queue management system help businesses to improve customer experience and customer satisfaction. It also collect business intelligence data which is crucial for decision making and strategy building. Which help businesses in identifying flaws and areas of improvements. Businesses can also optimize the efficiency and operational capability by closely monitoring various aspects of the customer experience and customer journey.

The purpose of this blog was to provide our audience with a basic understanding of the queue management system and its role in telecom sector. If you want to learn more about the subject or are looking for a suitable queue management solution, please feel free to get in touch with us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below.