Sometimes if you press the notification button to send a text message to a customer and don’t see them right away, you may press the notification button again to trigger an automated call notification.  Premium subscribers have a list of several pre-recorded messages to choose from. Pro subscribers have all these options, and now have an additional option to type in their own message and have it played using text-to-speech. This provides more flexibility for what you may want to tell your customers when you notify them.

Changing these settings can be done on the Waitlist Me website, under Account > Settings > Notifications. Here you can select one of the pre-recorded messages, or create your own by flipping the switch to On under Custom Phone Notification. Use up to 160 characters to craft a message that fits your business, pick a voice option, and save! Now your customers will hear this message when they receive a notification call.

Waitlist Me assigns a unique phone number to your account for sending text and call notifications.  If customers try to call back, they will hear a message instructing them to call the business directly. This message can also be tailored to reflect your needs. Simply type in the message you would like clients to hear, decide on a voice, and save your work.

Your boutique packed with shoppers? That’s a dream come true. Your store monopolized by a line of customers waiting for a dressing room? Now, that’s a nightmare.

Long lines for changing rooms can make people walk right out the door without giving your store—or your products—a chance. Don’t lose potential sales (or risk annoying loyal customers). Waitlist Me is a waitlist app that can help you manage traffic better and improve shopping experiences. Here’s how you could use it:

Keep customers shopping, not waiting

Browsing beats out waiting every single time, and Waitlist Me helps you let your customers do exactly that. Our text notification feature makes it easy for shoppers to take another look around your store without worrying about giving up their place in line. When you add them to the waitlist, they can check their place in line from their phone or just wait for you to text them when it is their turn.

Create an in-store kiosk

Worried about seeming pushy? Enter Waitlist Me’s kiosk mode, which lets customers add themselves to your waitlist without the help of a sales associate. All you need is a mobile device, like a tablet that runs iOS or Android, and a sign, and you’re ready to go! Bonus: Kiosk mode will free up your sales associates, too, making it easier for them to focus their energies on customers.

Turn shoppers into VIPs

There’s just something nice about a sales associate knocking on your waiting room door and saying, “Sam, can I get you a different size?” rather than, “Hey, you! How ya doin’ in there?” Waitlist Me lets you personalize your customer service from your very first interaction. We even offer a notes feature, which lets associates add brief details to each customer. Shopping for a semi-formal? Got it!

Offer a personal shopping service

A boutique-level offering can elevate any store—and add to your bottom line. With Waitlist Me, you can offer personal shopping alongside the more typical DIY variety and allow customers to book the service directly from the app. Our at-a-glance visual interface lets staffers quickly see who’s waiting for what and if you need to allocate more associates or dressing rooms to one area or the other.

Track your dressing room usage

Do you have enough dressing rooms available for your customers? Could you improve your store layout or your staffing to increase turnover time without sacrificing sales or the customer experience? Waitlist Me Pro’s analytics capabilities let you track how much time customers spend in dressing rooms, which helps you make informed decisions about your store’s future.

Animals are much more sensitive to external stimuli than their leash- and carrier-holding counterparts. If you’re running a pet-focused business, that means the systems and tools you use to keep customers moving through your office are doubly important. Using a waitlist app like Waitlist Me can help you and your pet-owning clients keep your visitors calm, collected, and happy, which leads to a better visit today and repeat visits in the future.

Here are five ways veterinarians, groomers, shelters, and clinics are using the app to ensure smooth customer service and positive experiences for pet owners and their furry, scaled, and feathered friends, alike.

Allow pet owners to wait in the best place for their pets

Some pets are happy stretched out on the tile in your waiting room. Others are more content roaming around outside. Waitlist Me lets you send pet owners a text once it’s their turn, which means they can stop hovering around your reception area while they wait.

Bonus! If they’re a few minutes away, they can let you know they’re on their way using our simple text response feature.

Speed up appointment scheduling and check-in

When you’re juggling a full waiting room and your customer is being tugged away by a Great Dane, you don’t have minutes to spare flipping through a paper schedule. Waitlist Me’s intuitive interface operates from a simple single screen. A few swipes is all you need to make a new appointment, check someone in, or add a walk-in to your waitlist.

Bonus! Waitlist Me’s Premium service has a feature that lets customers check the current wait on your website and add themselves to the list from home, which cuts down on call time and the bottleneck in your waiting room.

Quote accurate wait times—every single time

When a loved one is sick, a 15-minute wait can feel like 45. Waitlist Me helps ease pet parent anxiety (and the frustration they’re turning on reception staff) with intelligent time quoting. Being able to see actual wait times next to quoted times has been proven to improve accuracy, so your staff will quickly become pros in giving the right guidance on expected waits.

Bonus! Our public wait list feature lets them check their place in line from their smartphones, which means fewer “how much longer?!” questions thrown your way.

Squeeze emergencies into a busy schedule

Faced with a skunked dog in need of a bath tub? How about a cat whose curiosity requires a little medical intervention? No matter the emergency, Waitlist Me’s visual layout lets you quickly see how your day is shaping up and which of your staff members is free to handle your walk-in when.

Bonus! Waitlist Me also lets you book different types of pet care appointments by assigning your customers different colored statuses. It’s an easy, visual way to track the services you offer, the time you need to set aside for them, and the staff required to man your office.

Reduce the rate of no-shows

Your customers aren’t flakes; they just forgot! Waitlist Me helps you significantly cut down on no-shows and last-minute cancellations through our text and call reminders. And you barely have to lift a finger! Just press a button.

Bonus! Forget about scheduling nightmares. Waitlist Me’s Pro service has a number of resource management features for tracking how long your rooms or staff have been busy with customers.  This helps you see exactly which people you need to assign where—and when it’s OK to send someone home or call for back-up.

You run a sale to get people in the door. That’s what the circulars are for, the TV spots, the radio ads, the email blasts, the social media posts—it’s all to get eyes on your business and cars in your parking lot.

But what happens when all that promo works better than you’ve dreamed, and you’re overrun with customers eager to snap up whatever it is you’re selling? You lose them…unless you have a plan in place to handle the high customer volume.

Don’t wait ‘til it’s too late. Plan now to turn your biggest sales into massive success stories. Here’s exactly how to use a waitlist app like Waitlist Me to capitalize on sale day foot traffic.

Tip #1: Greet every guest as they pass through your doors

Station a greeter near the entrance and task that person with setting the tone for each customer’s visit: Be warm, inviting, and helpful. Let them know what specials you’re running. And, if your greeter can’t help them right away, they can add them to a waitlist so that the next associate can help them pick out the perfect item for their wants and needs.

The big plus: Waitlist Me makes adding customers to your list a cinch. Your greeter is one tap away from adding a new name and number and sending that customer into the store to browse—no muss, no fuss, no toe-tapping frustration. When it’s that customer’s turn for attention, they’ll get a text to let them know. Simple!

Tip #2: Make customer service your No.-1 priority

Just because a customer understands why staffers are booking it around the sales floor on Columbus Day or Black Friday doesn’t mean that a customer will accept anything less than top-notch service. Encourage your team to spend time with shoppers, to answer their questions fully, and to remain focused on the customer in front of them, despite the busier-than-usual atmosphere. To ensure that they’re able to do that, use Waitlist Me to delegate different areas of responsibility to each of your associates. Assign individuals to different departments, divvy up cash wrap and changing room responsibilities, and task someone with restocking shelves or manning the stockroom.

The big plus: Creating assignments means that your sales associates can focus exclusively on individual customers rather than keeping their eyes peeled for empty shelves, messy displays, and new shoppers walking through the door. And because Waitlist Me lets customers see where they are in line right from their smartphones, there are none of those “is it my turn yet?” interruptions to deal with, either. No more splitting attention means better service, which improves your bottom line every time.

Tip #3: Make more sales from your sale

One great sales day is fantastic. One great sales day that converts foot traffic into loyal customers? Even better. A single top-notch shopping experience can turn browsers into buyers and buyers into VIPs—and that starts with service. Waitlist Me lets you build trust through customer service by quoting accurate wait times and ensuring that your shoppers remain visible to your sales floor staff. And trust leads to sales.  You can’t always eliminate waits, but you can show you care about your customers’ time and make the waiting more bearable.

The big plus: Waitlist Me helps you track the actual time each customer has been waiting next to the estimate you told them, which improves your quote accuracy.  That means that when you tell a customer that an associate will meet them in the home entertainment department in 10 minutes, it’ll really be a 10-minute wait. Setting the right wait expectations reduces walkaways, and delivering on those wait estimates boosts customer satisfaction.

Plus, when customers don’t have to worry about losing their place in line or how long the wait will be, they can relax and continue browsing through yours store, making it more likely they’ll find more things to buy. That’s a win for everyone!

The last thing you want to see is would-be customers walk in your shop, eager to take home a new piece of jewelry, and then they walk right back out because none of your sales associates is free to help them. That could be thousands of dollars in current and future purchases, trotting down the street to a competitor.

But what if you could capture walk-outs before they, well, walk out? With a reservation management app like Waitlist Me, you can.  Here’s what a waitlist app would allow you to do:

Treat customers like VIPS—even when you’re slammed

Forget about splitting your attention between the woman eyeing earrings in the case in front of you and the couple that just walked through the door. Greet people when they come in the door to find out what they need, so you add them to the waitlist and let them know you will be with them soon. This let’s new visitors know you care and helps your sales associates feel comfortable giving 100 percent of their attention to the client at hand.

Wow new clients with efficient communication and prompt service

What happens to the couple you can’t help right this second? You can text them the moment an associate is free (or schedule an appointment). When they walk through the door again, you’ll be prepared—maybe with a tray of engagement rings already on the counter—because Waitlist Me lets you add details to every customer, like what they’re currently shopping for.

Don’t let customers slip away during a sales rush

A lot of time and money goes into planning sales events, and they are a sure-fire way to bring in a larger crowd. It can be frustrating, though, to see people leaving because they don’t know when it might be their turn to get some help. For those days, Waitlist Me has an option to use an additional iPad as a self-check in station. It gives customers a simple way to get their spot in line, so they can relax as they browse through the store, or even step outside, without worrying about losing their turn.

Increase repeat customers

An exceptional experience is what transforms a one-time customer into a long-time customer. A waitlist app can help you eliminate the elements clients despise: feeling rushed as they browse, ignored when they come in, or forgotten as soon as they pay for their purchase.