Queue management system design Archives - RSI Concepts - Top IT Solution Provider Company in Dubai, UAE

January 13, 2023

Must have features of Queue Management System

Businesses who deals with daily footfall understand the importance of waiting line management. In any given day there would be a time when the footfall would be very high, this time period is also known as peak hours, which would indicate the maximum footfall. It is those peak hours when the influx is high the crowd forms. The crowd formation lead to a nightmarish situation for the staff and the management. Managing large influx could be a very challenging task. For that business hire new staff, allocate more resources and might also adopt technological solutions. This also makes queuing very expensive. However, a business must have a queuing process to manage the waiting line and to organize the customers and visitors. Managing waiting line will help businesses to improve customer flow and reduce customer wait time. The queue management is also essential for customer experience. The customer experience is the most important part of any business’s strategy. It is extremely important to ensure a happy and satisfactory customer experience. A satisfied customers turns into loyal one and customer loyalty is essential for long term sustainable growth and profitability.

When it comes to queue management, the earliest form of queue management systems were just making line which were usually served as first come first served bases. Later on the clipboard and pen method was introduced all around the world, in fact many businesses from all around the world are still using this method. However, it turns out to be very inefficient, especially for the modern digital world the manual waiting line management is too outdated. That is when the digital queue management systems were introduced. The digital queue management systems have also evolved a lot over the past two decades. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are slightly different, it is actually due to rapid growth, tougher competition and savvy customers with sky-high demands and expectations. This encouraged both businesses and vendors to come up with more advanced, innovative and efficient queue management systems. When you seek to acquire a queue management system in Dubai or anywhere in UAE you will find tons of options. One can easily get overwhelmed with the sheer number of designs and models advertised all over the market. That is why in this blog we will list all essential and important features of a queue management system that you must consider while acquiring a new queuing solution.

Important Features of a Queue Management System

Before we discuss the important features of a queue management system it is important to understand what a basic digital queue management system is. A digital queue management system consists of two parts, one is the software and the other is the hardware. The queuing process starts with the customer or visitor signing up for the queue via ticket dispensing self-service interactive kiosk and they system issued them a ticket containing their position in the queue and the estimated time to their turn. The system also have audio-visual announcement module which makes announcements at each customer calling and also provide basic queuing details at a large signage screen. When the customer’s number is called they reach to the designated counter, get served and leave. Some queue management system also provide a customer feedback collection module which request customers to submit feedback before leaving. Furthermore the queue management system automates several steps of the customer journey and have ability to collect valuable business intelligence data which help management analyze and improve relevant processes and work flows.

When a business decides to acquire a modern digital queue management system they can easily get overwhelmed with the sheer number of options and vendors available in the UAE. This could be confusing and very challenging for the management, here are the key features that you should consider while selecting a queue management system for your business to ensure maximum performance and impact.

Features of Queue Management System: 1. Essential Hardware Components

The queue management system is built on very effective and efficient technology platforms. There is no maximum limit of hardware component but there is a minimum limit. The queue management system technology is widely available and utilized hence it makes it easier to find a tons of hardware accessories which enable businesses to offer more innovative and convenient features. Here is a list of basic hardware componentsthat are essential to operate a digital queue management system:

Ticket Dispensing Unit or Ticket Dispensing Interactive Self-Service Kiosk
Digital Signage Screens and Displays
Announcement System
Counter Plates or Counter Displays

The quantity of the hardware depends on the size of the service center and other details. Such as if the waiting area is small then only 1 digital signage is fine, it waiting area is larger than we might need 2, furthermore if the digital signage is not visible from every part of waiting area then we will also require to install 2 of them and so on. Similarly the interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk, counter plates and/or any other hardware quantity is determined.

Apart from essential hardware components there are several other factors that also cause businesses to have a different hardware configurations. There are several other hardware components and accessories that can also be installed. For example if you want to fetch the customer identification details at the sign-up process than you might require an Emirate ID Card Reader, an RFID or passport scanner, barcode reader, document scanner, etc. All those hardware accessories can be integrated with the interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk. Similarly business could have different needs and processes hence they might need different types of hardware which they can integrate in the system to maximize its usability and functionality. Business also frequently use customer feedback collection for that they can integrate separate hardware devices in the system such as touch screen tablets, interactive kiosks, etc. The touch screen and tablets are usually used at the counters or near the service counters, the kiosks are usually placed at the exits or in easy-to-reach place where most of the customers and visitors can see them. These hardware can also be integrated with the queue management system if needed.

Features of Queue Management System:2. Essential Software Components

The queue management system software is the core application which process all the data, take instructions and perform the queuing tasks. The queue management system software is a server-side application which contains all the source codes, algorithms and processes required for the system. The core application can be accessed by multiple interfaces which are exclusively designed for different user groups.

Customer UI
Service Agent Dashboard
Administrative Dashboard

The customer user interface (UI) is accessible from the interactive self-service kiosk which is used for sign-up process and it also dispense the tickets. Furthermore the customers can be provided with additional features via this UI which are available. The service agents also got their dedicated dashboard which is designed for them. The service agent dashboard offer several useful options via an intuitive UI. The service agent’s dashboard is designed to help and facilitate several agent’s tasks such as pre-sale, post-sale tasks, customer calling, queuing information, customer rerouting features, etc. Then there is an administrative dashboard which is the back office of the system and is designed for the IT and the management. The management can get live queuing data, historical data, performance data, analytical tools, and features to manage the content, configurations and processes of the queue management system. These all are basic software components but businesses can have more features as per their needs.

Features of Queue Management System:3. Automated Customer Flow Management

The biggest advantage of a digital queue management system is that it helps automating the customer flow and improve customer experience by reducing customer wait time and improving the efficiency of the employees. However, many businesses doesn’t realize that this automation can be extremely useful if it also allow them to customize the processes as per their needs or situation. Usually a digital queue management system have basic configuration which allow businesses to implement their queuing policy and the smart algorithms automates the entire process. A good queue management system will also provide you customization features which will enable you to configure a lot many details of the process. It also gives businesses more control over their queuing policies and make it easier to implement a customized queuing policy. This also involved special need scenarios, for example at an event or occasion when you are expecting massive footfall you can implement an entirely different queuing policy for a limited time period and later resume to regular procedures. Similarly the queue management system software is based on AI (artificial intelligence) and smart algorithms which enables it to analyze queuing data in real-time and take decisions in real-time to reroute customers to ensure maximum efficiency and to optimize the wait time and performance. All such features are an indicator of a good high-performance queue management system.

Features of Queue Management System:4. Virtual Queuing

The virtual queuing is one of the modern form of queue management process. The virtual queuing gain huge popularity in Dubai and all around the UAE in past few years. Businesses and customers both are admiring it because of its great benefits and excellent efficiency. The virtual queuing involves integrating digital channels and remote mediums which allow customers and visitors to interact with the queue management system without being physically present at the business premises. That is the major difference between the traditional queue management systems and virtual queue management systems. Customers and visitors are allowed to sign-up for virtual queues using remote channels such as website, QR code, customer portals, mobile phone applications, SMS, Email, Call, etc. The customers are issued an e-ticket which contains their position in the queue and estimated time to their turn. This means that a customer or visitor can sign-up for the queue while sitting at their home or office. Then they can plan their travel accordingly to spend least time at the waiting areas. That is why the waiting time for the virtual queue management system is very short and in fact in some cases it is literally none. There are several other benefits of virtual queuing such as live queuing updates via website, customer portals, SMS, WhatsApp, mobile apps, etc. Alerts and notifications are also very useful and the customers and agents can communicate as well. In general the virtual queuing offers an excellent customer experience and much higher customer satisfaction than any traditional digital queue management system.

Features of Queue Management System:5. Third-Party System Integration

Whenever a business acquires a new software based solution they always consider the capabilities and limitations of the third-party integration feature. Similarly when you are acquiring a digital queue management system you should also make sure that it will offer adequate support for third-party system integration. The third-party system integration is basically a technological solution to enable two separate and standalone systems to communicate with each other. Both systems can share data and synchronize instructions to maximize the efficiency, performance and capabilities of the systems. The third-party system integration depends on the technology, programing techniques and the structure of the software. Some closed-source software doesn’t allow integration outside of their ecosystem which can be a great problem for system integration. Some technologies fully support third-party integration but are not compatible with the other systems. Hence it is important to understand your existing IT infrastructure and digital environment before deciding which queue management system you want to implement. With the help of system integration you can maximize the efficiency of the system and relevant processes, you can minimize repeated work and efforts required to perform a task and you can save time and resources of data conversion and manual upload. For example the integration of the queue management system with the customer database allow it to identify the customer, if you are also collecting customer feedback and it is integrated with your queuing system you can improve the response rate and data quality and the third-party system integration also help you facilitate service agent and maximize their work quality and efficiency. That is why the third-party system integration is a must to have feature for a queuing system.

Features of Queue Management System:6. Centralized Administration

For service sector it is common to have multiple offices, branches and service centers. This means that most of the businesses have one central location or head office where the most senior management resides and then they have several branches or regional offices. A good queue management system provide you great features to support a centralized management structure. The administrative dashboard comes with ability to allow creating multiple user groups with different access and administration authority which should align with your internal hierarchal structure. Such features will help you to integrate your work flows and management practices within the queue management process. Furthermore it will also allow head office and senior management to monitor and manage each and every connected branch. The system allow appointing a branch manager at each location, even one manager can have multiple locations as well and then there could be several other access levels such as assistants, supervisors, etc. The agents could also have different access and administration levels such as ordinary service agent, team lead, supervisor, and manager, etc. All these features will help businesses manage and monitor their queuing processes from head office and also help supporting the on-site staff and management in their tasks and activities.

Features of Queue Management System:7. Maintenance, Scalability and Customization

Most of the time when businesses acquire a new software solution they usually don’t pay much attention to the future scalability, maintenance, customization, upgrades, etc. However it is crucial to understand and agree with the vendor on these points. Most of the queue management systems in the market offers great support in all these areas however, the trickier part is that every vendor has its own payment and costing structure hence all these things could be very costly. There are two different types of software, one is COTS or commercial off-the-shelf software which are ready-to-use and are designed by a vendor or service provider according to the market standards. The up-scaling, customization and modifications could cost you a lot down the road which impact the overall ROI of the system. There is another type of software solution which is called customized software development, in that case the vendor design and develop a tailor-made queue management system solution exclusively for your business and you will get full ownership rights of the product. In that case all such costs can be eliminated or significantly reduced which improve your ROI over the time. No matter which system development approach you take it is important to clearly understand, define and agree upon all these aspects as in future you will be needing all those services. Any obstacle or difficulty could compromise your growth, progress and productivity as well.

Features of Queue Management System:8. Business Intelligence Data Gathering

In the present day and age the modern businesses are heavily relying on the data, in fact the most successful business strategies are completely data driven. Business decisions, policy making, strategies and product development functions heavily rely on the business intelligence data. The business intelligence data is basically the insight to your internal and external processes including employees, customers, communication, and much more. A good queue management system always capture valuable business intelligence data. It can capture system usage and analytical data from each and every customer touch-point throughout the customer journey. It monitor and evaluate the entire queuing process, customer journey, customer experience, happiness and overall efficiency of the queuing process. Furthermore the queue management system is also capable of monitoring several employee performance KPIs and it can integrate with other systems to further improve the quality of the business intelligence data. The customer feedback is one of the most important part of business intelligence data, a good queue management system offers you integrated customer feedback tools, or it can also provide in-built customer feedback management features which help you to gather feedback data long with other insights. A queue management system also provide in-built analytical tools and data sharing capabilities which allow managers to extract actionable reports and share data with stakeholders to address the problems and take actions for future improvements.

Conclusion

The Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is a very dynamic marketplace, the customer trends are changing rapidly the market competition is growing steadily and the technology is evolving on a rapid pace. All these factors need a business to adopt to the technologies and practices that can respond to the sudden changes and also support business growth. When it comes to the modern marketplace the businesses have started transitioning from a sales-oriented business model to a more customer-centric business model since more than a decade now. This transition was not sudden but gradually it have completely changed the way businesses were operating around a decade ago. For any customer-centric business the customers are its top priority, especially in highly competitive markets the businesses need to pay more attention to their customers’ needs, desires and interests. According to several studies and researches all around the globe, a modern day customer puts experience equal to the quality of the product or service they acquire from a business. These studies have also indicated that a majority of the customers are willing to pay extra if they are ensured that they will get a better experience. This makes customer experience one of the most important success factor. Businesses all around the UAE are actively seeking new methods, practices, technologies and solutions which can help them improve customer experience.

A queue management system is the solution to all major problems that a service-based business could face. It help businesses improve customer experience and it also increase their operational capabilities and performance. That is why a when it comes to acquire a new queue management system there is a lot on the stake. Businesses need to be very careful when selecting a new queue management system. However, in Dubai and all around the UAE the sheer number of vendors and different types of queue management systems can make it very confusing for a manager to decide which solution they should choose. That is why in this blog we have listed the basic details about the software and hardware of the queue management system along with several other features that can help you achieve your current goals and a good queue management system with all these features will make you able to deal with unexpected and uncertain future market conditions. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want our help to design and develop a custom tailor-made and highly cost-efficient queue management system for your business please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

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June 15, 2022

Building the Customer Experience of the Future

The customer experience or often referred to as CX is one of the key factor in any business’s long term success. By definition the customer experience (CX) is the interactions and experiences a customer have with a business throughout the customer journey. It starts from the introduction or first interaction and it continues till after sale services and a customer becoming a loyal customer of the brand. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE most of the businesses owners and senior managers think that they should increase their investments in customer experience and keep doing it for at least 5 to 7 years in future. The customer experience improvement can significantly increase the revenue by up to 70% over the course of three to five years. That is huge and what makes it even more important is that only 40% to 45% of businesses and enterprises are planning to invest in customer experience in the next year. It could provide you a great competitive edge. Mostly only big businesses, enterprises and large companies consider investing in the customer experience, however, it is equally important for SMEs and local businesses to offer a great customer experience which can help them obtain customer loyalty and increase their revenue over the time.

Furthermore in Dubai and all around the UAE the competition is very tough and the customer demands and market trend also demand a business to think out of the box and implement innovative technologies to improve customer satisfaction. Every business strives for customer loyalty and good feedback from them. However, it is the customer experience that will make them happy, encourage them to recommend your brand to others and make them loyal. The customer loyalty means more business from them. Most of the time businesses don’t realize how crucial it is to obtain customer loyalty. Studies have revealed that it is 5 to 25 time more expensive to acquire a new customer comparing to selling to an existing customer. That could make a huge difference in the long term. If you keep selling to existing customers and also acquiring new on a steady pace, you can boost your profitability and revenue by ten folds in the next five years. Here are key points that can help businesses in improving customer experience.

Understand the Impact of Customer Experience on Customer Loyalty

The customer experience (CX) is the most important part of customer relationship management (CRM). Only the customer who have positive experience with the brand become loyal customers and do repeated business. The customer with the bad experience are more likely to switch. The customer experience have huge impact on customer loyalty. Around five years ago, the customer experience was just a thing for the multinational companies and large enterprises. Now a days a customer weight their experience (CX) far higher than ever before. Even customers are willing to pay extra if they know they will get a better customer experience. That means if a business succeed in delivering satisfactory customer experience they will going to get a loyal customer else the customer will move to another business. Customer satisfaction doesn’t mean low price, discounts, promotions, etc. But it means excellent service too. The customer experience is a collective measure of various different factors that make your customer happy. Let say you have arranged a free parking for them, there is a free smartphone charging station in the waiting area, which could make them happy.

For the digital customer interaction it is extremely important to be proactive in digital communication. The customer support emails should be responded as quickly as possible. Their issues has to be solved in a timely manner. Your business website should be able to satisfy your customers. Your mobile application meet their needs and expectations. Offer them interactive solutions, self-service and multiple channels to communicate with you. Be active in social media and quickly respond to private messages or comments that you are receiving from your customers of audience. This will improve their digital experience. When their experience is improved they start trusting the brand. Once the trust is established the account managers or customer care teams can easily establish a long term relationship which can generate a huge repeated business. Furthermore the loyal customers are always good brand advocate. They not only defend your brand but also help promoting it through their friends, family, colleague and social media. This is great for your brand image and brand reputation. It attracts more customers as well. Businesses with a loyal customer base can easily accomplish their long term goals and objectives.

Understand Customer Experience and Customer Service

Most businesses often confuse customer service with customer experience. However, both are not the same. Usually here in Dubai and al around the UAE a company staff or customer service agent is the first contact of the customer with the business. Hence the first impression very much depends on that interaction. However, the customer experience is not just customer service, in fact the customer service is just a small part of the customer experience. The customer experience consists of all touch points where a potential customer or existing customer can interact with the business. The customer experience starts from the very first interaction which not only include visits at a physical store but it also includes interaction in the digital via online. The customer experience is far more than a person-to-person interaction. It includes customer relationship management and with the help of modern tools and technology it become easier and more effective.

Software tools like CRM (Customer Relationship Management) have capabilities to collect and process data. For example if a business wants to see the past purchase history of a customer then they can understand the customer behavior, their preferences and they can also predict what the customer could need next. Furthermore the businesses can understand various market trends and streamline data in their product development process to develop the products their customer will most likely to admire. Businesses can further utilize this data to personalize customer experience. These days customer love personalized experience. That doesn’t mean the customer service is not as that important. In fact the customer service is as much important as it could ever get. A small bad experience at customer service could completely ruin your all other efforts. That is why the customer service is also extremely important but the businesses should have to understand the difference between the customer service and the customer experience and treat them as two separate process or functions.

The Customer Experience Become the Top Strategic Goal for the Market Leaders

Several studies have been done which revealed that the customer experience has become the top strategic objective of the businesses. No matter which industry or market sector we take, whether it is B2B (Business to Business) or B2C (Business to Consumers) business, for all market leader in their respective industry are aiming to improve their customer experience by making it the top priority strategic objective. There are four key component of the customer experience which these market leaders are categorically prioritizing from anything else, and these factors are convenience, relevance, reliability and responsiveness. It means that a business must provide products and services that are relevant to the customer’s problems and their needs. The products and services must provide a reliable solution. The solution should be convenience, it means from acquiring information to interacting with business and making a purchase the entire customer journey process should be very convenience. The forth and even more important component is responsiveness.

When a customer decides to purchase a product or acquire a service, they need the vendor or service provider to respond to them immediately. Making improvements to all these four factors can enhance customer experience and boost your sales.Remember the customer experience is not just a reactive approach but it is a completely proactive approach. The customer experience is mostly driven by the feelings. It is crucial to understand what your customers are feeling and the steps or actions you are taking, how they could affect their feelings in future. The customer experience is a collective measure of the overall performance of the entire business including all its functions. The common matric for the measuring the customer experience is NPS Score and NPS surveys. The NPS means Net Promoter Score. A customer will promote your business only if they are satisfied with each and every interaction with the business.

Understand Customer Persona and Create a Clear Customer-Focused Vision

It is extremely important to understand your customers. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE businesses use various different tools and CRM to gather valuable business intelligence data. Furthermore the business can also build customer profiles on the bases of geographic and demographic data it have. Furthermore the modern digital tools are very capable in collecting and processing data. Businesses can also analyze the data to determine popular purchase trends and patterns and on the bases of those trends along with additional demographic and geographic data a business can easily create customer personas. Usually the marketing and communication department utilize customer personas to improve the marketing ROI. However, the same with added information can be utilize to create customer personas and profiles which help management to understand customers in a better way and help them making customer-friendly strategies.

Businesses can utilize the data and these customer profiles to create a highly customer-focused vision for the future and according to that vision strategies can be formed and strategic goals can be established. This will help improving customer experience and also performance of the business and various relevant internal processes.

Create a Strong Emotional Connection with Your Customers

Emotions shape the attitude and the attitude drives decisions. According to several studies almost 50% of the customer experience is based on emotions. The customer loyalty based on the emotional attachment a customer have had with the brand. Customers do care about the features and value proposition of the products or services but at the end of the day it is their emotion which drives their decision. The customer acquire and purchase what they feel is a right choice and it could be based on comparison, the strong USP or value proposition or brand message that you are offering them. But the decision is heavily influenced by their emotions. That feeling and emotional driver is the experience they had with your business. In the long run it is the customer loyalty that matters the most for the business’s success and growth. The customer loyalty is also driven by the emotional attachment and the feeling a customer have about the brand. The customer service or customer support team plays a crucial role in customer satisfaction and help business obtaining customer loyalty.

If a customer develops an emotional connection with the business due to the exceptional service they will most likely to stick with the brand for a long time. Businesses have to be a little bit of creative and innovative at this stage in order to establish a strong emotional bond with its customers. This happens only when the business is capable of understanding its customers. When a customer thinks the business understands them and is trying to meet their expectations they start liking it. Thus it is easier to gain their trust and make them loyal to your brand.

Collect Customer Feedback on Regular Bases

The customer feedback is a great tool to add in your customer experience strategy. It can provide very detailed information about customer’s liking/disliking and their preferences. Businesses can use multiple channels and survey types to collect customer feedback data. The online surveys via emails or website along with in-store survey are the great medium to collect high quality and quantity data. For customer feedback it is important to collect as much data as possible. For example, only 1% of the product users can’t provide enough data to accurately understand the opinion of the rest of the customers. In-store customer feedback collection is also a great way to collect customer feedback data in bulk quantity. Businesses usually install small touch screens or interactive kiosks to execute customer feedback campaigns. Furthermore the businesses can segment that data on bases of various variables to understand and patterns and trends.

For example, the data be divided as age group 20 to 25, gender female, and location Sharjah branch, feedback about a particular aspect of the products or service. This way businesses can understand a lot about various business processes, employees, quality of the products and services and much more. This data can be utilized in the policy making, strategy building and product/service development process. Businesses can make more informed decisions and they can also evaluate the impact of those decisions on the customer happiness and customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

The customer experience is getting more important with each passing year. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the market is becoming more competitive and the customers are becoming more demanding with higher expectations. Several studies have revealed that a modern day customer put experience (CX) almost equal if not higher to the quality of the product or service they are acquiring. More customers are willing to pay extra if they are sure they will get a better service and experience. The customer loyalty is almost totally dependent on the customer experience. If the customer experience is good the customer will become loyal and they will do repeated business. If their experience is bad they will simply move on to the next business. In this blog we have discussed a few key points that can help businesses in building the customer experience of the future. RSI Concepts is a well-known brand for customer satisfaction solutions in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you need our help to build you customer satisfaction and business intelligence tools, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

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