With Memorial Day Weekend in our rear-view mirror, we are psyched to see what summer has in store. While all of us at Waitlist Me are enthusiastic about not waiting—and making every wait as painless and speedy as possible—we have to admit that we get a kick out of seeing what folks are itching to see and do, no matter how much time they have to spend in line.

What’s cracking us up, making us scratch our heads, and inspiring us to buy tickets this season? Here are the top-five crazy (and crazy-awesome) things people are waiting for this summer:

#1. A bucket of cookies at the Minnesota State Fair

Nearly 2 million people visit the Minnesota State Fair in the Twin Cities every year. The massive fair grounds have everything you could want in a fair, from giant sculptures made out of butter to an ax-throwing contest. They also have Sweet Martha’s famous chocolate chip cookies, available by the bucket-full. Last year, the line for these cookies was 45 minutes long.

#2. A ticket to see Shakespeare

Much ado about nothing? Not so say the theatre fans who wait (and wait and wait) for tickets to see Shakespeare in the Park in New York City. Each year, New York’s Public Theater puts on two shows outside in Central Park, soften starring big-time actors like Morgan Freeman and Anne Hathaway. How long is the wait? Who knows! Some line up the night before the free tickets are distributed.

#3. Exclusive merch at Comic-Con

With so many celebrities making it to San Diego for Comic-Con, you don’t have to be a certified geek to geek out over this event. It’s four days of panels, signing events, screenings, and, of course, all sorts of merchandise you can only get your hands on here. The lines themselves have taken on legendary status. Some of them even have their own Twitter accounts (we’re looking at you, Hall H)!

#4. To watch a little match play at Wimbledon

This summer, we’re certain of exactly one thing: There is no event that takes its lines more seriously than Wimbledon. While the Brits are certainly well-known for their queueing style, only this pinnacle of fastidiousness offers up a 30-page guide to lining up for tickets. Some wait all night (hear ye, hear ye: tents larger than a 2-person are forbidden). Some show up just before dawn, their fingers crossed that they’ll be among the first 500.  

#5. To leave the Nevada desert

If you’re looking for an experience this summer, you can surely find it at Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. In late August, that’s where the Burning Man festival sets up camp. After the titular man is burned—don’t worry, he’s not an actual person—it can take 6 to 8 hours to get out of Black Rock and even longer to get to the nearest city. This annual leaving is so massive that it has its own name: the Exodus.

Is your business ramping up this summer?

Use a waitlist and reservation app like Waitlist Me to manage your queues better and make your customers happier campers, no matter where, when, or why they’re hanging out in line. You can get started for free today and access features including text notifications, smart ETAs, and multi-location management.

With legalization on the legislative docket across the company, cannabis businesses are the retail industry’s rising stars. Dispensary success stories dot the landscape from the forests of Maine to the beaches of California. In fact, Business Insider names marijuana-related businesses as the fastest growing job sector in the United States.

What does that mean for you? One word: competition. The key to coming out on top? Two words: customer service.

Adding a waitlist and appointment app like Waitlist Me to your arsenal of business tools is an easy way to improve customer experience and loyalty and to increase your referral clientele. Plus, you can get started today for free!

Read on for five ways Waitlist Me can help you run a better marijuana business.

Let customers browse while they wait

A store loaded with interesting edibles feels like a grown-up candy store! Indulge your customers’ desires to take it all in without forcing them to give up their spot in line.

With Waitlist Me, guests can add their names to a digital queue. Then, they can delve into your merchandise, exploring their options and coming up with questions for your staffers. When one of your sales associates is free to assist them, customers will get a text on their smartphone letting them know their turn has arrived. Waiting has never been so simple!    

Welcome new customers to your store

A dispensary isn’t like other stores offering consumable goods. There are all sorts of variables new customers need to be educated about. Who better to guide them than your expert staff?

Waitlist Me frees up your staff so they can worry about one customer at a time. The app keeps track of your line—and lets queuers know their ETA—so that your employees don’t have to. This ensures that each person who steps into your store feels special and can ask every question they have about your products, no matter how small.

Bonus: Eliminating the need for staffers to juggle all the customers in your store will cut down on stress and improve sales results thanks to personalized, one-on-one attention.

Eliminate the wait for walk-ins

For regulars who know what they want and are on a tight schedule, Waitlist Me is what they’re waiting for.

Our app offers a web widget that businesses can easily place on their website. The web widget lets customers jump in line from wherever they are, like their office cubicle or a bar a few blocks over. That means less waiting around in your store for a clerk and more time enjoying life.

Introduce new treats

As the cannabis industry continues to grow, new products continue to pop up every day. Hosting in-store parties and tastings for these fresh goodies let your local community know what’s new. Waitlist Me lets you manage these crowded events with ease.

With Waitlist Me’s kiosk mode, you can let guests check themselves in as soon as they enter your store. Then, they can browse and mingle until you’re ready to show off your new wares. Our public waitlist feature, which customers can access on their phones and on in-store monitors, keeps them updated on their place in line.

Match shoppers with expert staffers

Have customers looking to ease medical complaints? How about newbies not sure where they should start? While some can help themselves, others need more guidance. Waitlist Me is here to help you help them.

Waitlist Me allows you to assign customers to certain employees. If you have associates with expertise in different areas, you can make sure that they help the customers who have questions they can answer best.

Owning or managing a business today is significantly more stressful than it was 10 years ago. So is being a human living in 2019.

We’re more stressed now than we’ve ever been before. Blame it on politics. Blame it on the economy. Blame it on your zany Aunt Maude. Regardless of the numerous places our stress is coming from, we know one place that can use some improvement in the stress department.

The bustle! The noise! The tight squeeze! There are all sorts of ways your waiting room could be skyrocketing your customers’ stress levels. Want to prevent walk-outs and increase customer loyalty? Here are three stressful problems in your waiting area and easy, inexpensive ways to fix them today.

A wall-to-wall wait

Achieving the right level of fullness is an art. An empty parking lot at 7 p.m. on a Friday night sends the wrong signal to hungry diners. But a jam-packed foyer? That sends a message, too, one that might intimidate a walk-in.

Stressor: The line is so long! I’ll be waiting forever!

Quick fix: Vacate your waiting area just enough by using Waitlist Me to notify guests when you’re ready for them. This leaves them free to explore the area while they wait—and keeps new customers feeling like they won’t be waiting an eternity.

“Was that me?” worries

A little background music, ordering drinks at the bar, nodding along to a conversation—it doesn’t take much to distract guests from a long wait. However, those little distractions come with their own problems.

Stressor: Did they call me already? Did I miss my table?!

Quick fix: Replace bulky buzzers and hovering hostesses with text notifications through our waitlist app. That way, your guests will be notified in a manner that suits them best. Plus, our public waitlist feature allows customers to check their place in line on a TV display in your waiting area or directly on their phone. That reduces the anxiety over how-much-longer ETAs.

Invisible customer syndrome

Hey, mistakes happen! But when you’re using a messy grease board or a hard-to-read, handwritten appointment book to keep track of your waitlist, mistakes happen far more frequently than if you brought your business into the 21^st century.

Stressor: Um, excuse me? Did you forget about me? I’ve been waiting an hour!

Quick fox: Nobody wants to feel invisible, and nobody wants to hang out in a foyer for 25 minutes before realizing they’ve been skipped by accident. With a digital waitlist, you can cut down on those negative experiences. Waitlist Me is straightforward. Think: One easy-to-read list and zero confusing scribbles. With a single glance, hosts can see exactly who’s waiting for what sort of table, how long they’ve been tapping their toes, and when you can get them seated.

You can tell by the block-long lines that people are waiting to get their hands on the newest It-burger or It-lipstick or It-phone. But should you invest your time (and your patience) into queueing for the latest must-have, too?

If you wanna stick around, by all means, go for it. We have friends who see a line and hop right on without even checking to see what they’re waiting for. (Yes, we think they’re crazy, but hey, #youdoyou.) Who knows? Maybe there’s really great music in the lobby. Maybe you have 74 minutes to kill before an appointment. Maybe the arch support in your sneakers needs testing.

Or maybe not. If your eyeballs turn into question marks at the sign of a line, here’s your definitive guide to figuring out if what you’re waiting for is worth the time you spent in line.

#1. The queue is out of control

Some businesses are experts at line management (see: Chick-Fil-A and Disney World). Some businesses aren’t used to lines but are happy to adapt to a surge in traffic. Others use long wait times to garner attention and tend to care more about press than customer satisfaction.

The first two are usually worth your time. They’ll either get you to the front as expeditiously as possible, where you can enjoy whatever it is you’ve been waiting for, or they’ll apologize and offer you something even better.

The last one? Not so much. Many businesses that use long lines as leverage also have limited stock (think: doorbuster deals on Black Friday or Build-A-Bear’s discount goof). That means if you’re not near the front, you’ll be waiting ages for diddly squat. If that’s the case—and a quick Google should give you an answer—we suggest cutting your losses ASAP.

#2. Exiting customers don’t look happy

Pay no heed to impatient line-grumblers—unless, of course, they’re grumbling is along the lines of, “Our pancakes always come out burned when we eat here. Why are we waiting for a table again?”

You want to know what the folks leaving the business-in-question have to say about their experience. Are they smiling and laughing? Are they toting doggy bags and saying they can’t wait to come back? Or, are they frowning? Grimacing? Shaking their heads? Crying?

Read their body language and, if you’re feeling particularly daring, pop on a grin and ask them straight-out what whatever-it-is was like. Most people will tell you honestly, especially if you catch them by surprise.

#3. You feel uncomfortable

The human body is a curious thing. It has parts without purpose. It can manage miraculous feats of strength. And it can sense when you need to get out NOW. That niggling feeling at the base of your spine? Those hairs standing up on the back of your neck? Those are your instincts telling you that, hm, something is a little off.

It could be too loud. It could be too frantic. Perhaps the food smells off or the waiting room looks dirty. Point being: If you’re not feeling it, for whatever reason, back on out of there and move on!

Waitlist Me can help

When there are good reasons to wait or a line is simply unavoidable, Waitlist Me helps businesses make customer waits more bearable. Benefits include improving quote time estimates, simplifying line management, and giving customers the flexibility to wait where they like and be notified when it’s their turn.  It’s great for the business as well. Better experiences mean higher customer satisfaction, less walkaways, and other positive business results.

Any diner can appreciate black-and-white tile and chrome fixtures. Retro is always in, baby! But there’s a line between old-school cool and remarkably outdated.

Wondering where your restaurant falls? One easy way to tell is to check what’s waiting for queuers at your hostess stand. Is it a mobile device with a waitlist app, like Waitlist Me? Totally this-century. Is it a grease board and a dirty rag? A little grody looking, but still sitting on the fence. Is it a basketful of buzzers? Time for an overhaul!

Don’t believe us? Listen in to what your customers have to say when they’re handed a buzzer and told to wait ‘til it goes off.

“I’m not holding it.”

At 5, a buzzer is a novelty. It vibrates! It lights up! You get to be the first to know when it’s your turn! Unlike watching a cat chase a laser pointer, though, it’s a novelty that grows stale with age. While many customers are totally down for coloring alongside the kids—um, if you’ll upgrade that crossword puzzle, please—they’re ready to leave the buzzers to the grade schoolers.

“Gross! I don’t want to touch it.”

When was the last time you cleaned those greaseballs? Even though customers get them before their food, buzzers tend to be streaked with dust, grease, and who-knows-what else. In the age of germaphobia and a rising spate of super-bacteria, customers would really rather not come that close to a buzzing petri dish, thanks.

“Darn, what if I don’t hear it buzz?”

You’d think a hand-held buzzer would be easy to notice but often times, they aren’t. In fact, if customers set them down on the bar or slide them into a jacket pocket, the flashing lights and rattling plastic are easy to miss. To prevent this, one or more guests will disengage from the social atmosphere you’ve worked hard to create, all to ensure that they don’t miss out on their table.

“Someone needs to hold my drink.”

Short of a menu taller than a toddler, there’s nothing clunkier than a restaurant buzzer. Customers either need to set them down (where they tend to be forgotten), balance them on a limb (where they tend to fall), or hold them in one hand (where they take up much-needed real estate). For those that are keeping tabs of coats, bags, children, phones, or beverages, this becomes a nuisance they quickly resent.

“How close do you think we need to be?”

Will a buzzer work outside the lobby? How far from the front doors can customers wander? Being handed a buzzer on a crowded evening puts guests in a precarious situation: They need to pinpoint a space where they can comfortably wait and where the buzzer will still work. For long wait times, this can create anxiety. With every minute that ticks by, they wonder if maybe they missed their table. Cue constant check-ins with your staff, which defeats the purpose of the buzzer in the first place.

A better solution

Replace those outdated, expensive buzzers with a more up-to-date solution. Waitlist Me is so simple you can get started in a few minutes, and your guests will appreciate receiving a text instead of a clunky buzzer.