It’s now November (hard to believe, right) and the weather has certainly taken a turn. The air is cold, the rain is more frequent and snowfall is either here already or likely not far off. Nothing new for November in Canada, except for the addition of social distancing, occupancy limits and the need to control crowds. If, in the summer, customers were annoyed by queues and perhaps had to think twice about how badly they needed to get into your store; in the winter, a queue will almost certainly result in loss of customers.
There is some good news (well, at least positive news). There are digital solutions that are fast to implement and can minimize queues or eliminate them all together, while giving you new opportunities to treat your customers like VIPs. These solutions include appointment booking and virtual queues.
Appointment booking isn’t new, but it has been limited to certain industries. It’s time to remove that unnecessary limitation.
Giving your customers the ability to book appointments to visit your retail locations is where the potential to truly transform your customer experience lies. With Wavetec appointment booking you know who is coming and when. giving you the opportunity to offer a personalized shopping experience. This can include integration with your POS systems paired with your customer’s profile for a wide variety of offers and incentives to enhance your service offering and provide heightened value for the customer. At the minimum, your queue will be reduced by appointments, while the potential to create a unique and remarkable experience is ready to be taken advantage of with this straightforward tool.
Virtual queues replace the physical queue, allowing customers the freedom to wait wherever.
Another way to eliminate the physical queue is to replace it with a virtual queue. In this case, customers arriving are, essentially, given their digital ticket and when it’s their turn to enter are notified by popular communication methods like, SMS, WhatsApp, or email. Now wouldn’t that reduce line-ups drastically for your customers while creating smarter social distancing?
Why leave customers in the cold?
At Aequilibrium, we believe in delivering a remarkable customer experience. To that end, we’ve partnered with Wavetec, a customer experience solutions company that has 20+ years experience with a wide range of world-class clients. The solutions are quick to deploy, most can be up and running in a week or less, and are highly scalable, so you can start small and then expand as your customer and staff expectations evolve.
