Nobody knows better than our pandemic first responders how important it is these days to safeguard patients and healthcare workers. Doctor’s offices, urgent care facilities, and medical centers are also taking new steps to ensure the safety of their patients and staff. 

Waitlist Me makes it easy to improve waiting experiences and cut down on crowds and lines.  Here are some ways doctor’s offices and medical facilities are using our waitlist and reservation app during the coronavirus crisis.

#1. Make waiting safer for everyone

The fewer people you have in your waiting room, the better, whether social distancing policies are in place or not. From restaurants offering take-out to retailers promoting curbside pick-up, there’s been a tremendous uptick in businesses encouraging customers to spend as little time as possible inside their brick-and-mortar locations.

Healthcare facilities can do the same. When patients arrive for their appointments, they can be added to your waitlist and asked to wait in their cars until they can be seen by a medical professional. When a doctor, nurse, or P.A. is ready for them, simply send them a text alert to let them know to come inside.  Some places are even doing simpler screenings or check ups in the cars to avoid patients having to come inside at all.  

#2. Decrease the amount of contact required

With highly contagious illnesses like coronavirus spreading through cities like wildfire, office staff must be cautious about all the little things that were standard just a month ago, like sharing pens, passing clipboards, and opening doors.

Limiting contact between individuals, whether they’re patients, caregivers, or administrators, is key. Automating doors is one way to upgrade your office with an eye toward the future. Going digital with your paperwork is another. It also has the added benefits of decreasing in-office wait times and freeing up staff from data entry tasks.

With our add-yourself web widget, you can add Waitlist Me to this list of helpful no-contact improvements. Patients can check themselves in using their smartphones from anywhere and receive a confirmation message.  Text them when you are ready and you can even view their replies if they are running a few minutes late or letting you know when they have arrived. With Waitlist Me Pro there are also options to send custom responses to the texts patients send, like to reply with an update on the estimated wait remaining.

#3. Improve the overall waiting experience

We’re pretty sure no one really enjoys sitting in waiting rooms for their turn to see a physician. Flipping through months-old magazines amid who-knows-what illnesses? That’s not anyone’s idea of a good time.

Many offices are using Waitlist Me’s online features that can be viewed in phone browsers to give patients more control over how long—and where—they wait. With the widget, individuals can check in for their appointments (or for open clinic hours) from the comfort of their homes. Then, they can check the public waitlist feature to ensure a timely arrival when a healthcare provider is ready to see them. The public waitlist lets them know how many people are ahead of them in line and how long the estimated queue time is.

With stay-at-home orders the law of the land in most cities and states across America, dining out is quickly becoming a distant memory. But delivery and take-out? Restaurants from Tacoma to Charleston are figuring out how to keep their kitchens open, and Waitlist Me is helping with this process. 

Waitlist Me is the waitlist and reservation app that’s intuitive to get started and start using within a few minutes. It’s built for people, not techies, so you can learn it in minutes. We made sure that Waitlist Me isn’t just easy to use; our entire service is user-friendly, from usage (unlimited on multiple device) to customer service (prompt and friendly) to billing (simple and transparent, guaranteed). And it’s flexible enough to use on different devices in different business environments. You can install the Waitlist Me business app on Android and iOS devices, and use it in a browser on computers. 

Here are a few tips on how restaurants can use Waitlist Me’s features to keep their kitchens open, their employees working, and their customers well-fed during the coronavirus crisis.

#1. Manage a smoother pick up process 

Under normal circumstances, you would use Waitlist Me’s text notifications to alert guests once they’re added to your restaurant’s waitlist and again when their table is ready. During the COVID-19 pandemic, though, you can customize them in another way: Use the first notification to confirm an order. Send the second notification to let customers know when their order is ready and waiting for them.

Bonus: Thanks to our public waitlist feature, guests can also check on their order and see their estimated wait time. That way, they can plan their arrival based on where they are on the list. 

#2. Communicate simple no-contact pick-up instructions

Head off panicked phone calls and take-out containers that go cold before their ride arrives. How? By using Waitlist Me’s customization features to share your pick-up policies with your guests. These could include asking your customers to pop their trunks to facilitate no-contact pick-up, or to direct them to a particular area to gather their order.

We recommend adding these instructions to your…

– Website order form or Waitlist Me’s add-yourself web widget, which customers will see when they submit their orders

– First notification text, which you’ll send to confirm the order

– Second notification text, which will let guests know when their order is ready for pick-up

Bonus: Because Waitlist Me’s interface is a cinch to navigate on any internet-enabled device, you can update your instructions in seconds.

#3. Improve communications with two-way texting

Waitlist Me makes it easy to keep track of how long people have been waiting and when you have sent them notifications. You can also see when people reply with text responses and what they say.  There are a couple built in behaviors triggered in the app that are usually used to cause different parts of the app to flash if a customer is coming soon or cancelling. These can be repurposed in other ways, like for knowing when customers arrive, by changing the instructions in the text notifications. 

Waitlist Me Pro has a two-way texting feature that allows you to send open text responses to customer texts. You can answer questions, specify details on their order, and keep them updated on when their food is expected to leave the kitchen.

Tip: To ensure prompt pick-ups, ask your guests to text you their car model and color. That way, you can run their food out to them without second-guessing whose take-out bag belongs with which vehicle.

Those are several things we have seen helping with take-out and pickups, and not just for restaurants. Similar strategies are being applied for picking up products and waiting for services at other businesses.

These are challenging times with the spreading of the coronavirus. Many businesses are being forced to close their doors or to change the ways they do business to continue serving people.

Asking customers and patients to wait in their cars is gaining popularity as a better alternative than waiting inside businesses. Curbside service has taken on a whole new significance across multiple industries.

Waitlist Me makes it easy to track who is next in line to be served and then press a button to send a text notification when you are ready for them, so people can wait in their cars until it is their turn. There are also options for people to add themselves to the waitlist without even having to leave their car.

Here are some of the industries using Waitlist Me to provide better wait experiences in new ways:

Healthcare Facilities – Medical offices, urgent care centers, dental offices, eyecare centers, and hospitals are some examples where patients often wait in confined areas and may be afraid of getting sick from others. Allowing them to wait outside or in their cars helps to limit cross-infections for patients and healthcare workers.

Dispensaries – As this Forbes article aptly points out, “It should go without saying that medical cannabis patients are the most vulnerable cannabis consumers, and the most at risk of serious complications from Covid-19.” Social distancing strategies like curbside pickup can help reduce the risk to these patients. Even for non-patients, waiting in the car can be better for limiting the number of people in the store at a time or avoiding the need to go into the store at all.

Veterinary and Animal Services – With people spending more time at home and the elevated stress-levels caused by the crisis, pets are going to be an even bigger focus than ever. Vet clinics, animal shelters, and humane centers can keep visitors and staff safer by not having too many customers waiting inside their businesses.

Restaurants – For those restaurants that don’t have to close altogether, shifting to delivery and curbside pick-ups so customers don’t have to leave their cars can be a way to continue serving their clients.

Blood Donation – With people more reluctant to leave their houses, blood supplies have declined. Making it easier to schedule an appointment and wait outside can help encourage more people it is safe to donate blood.

Supply Stores – While many retail stores are closing, some types of supply stores will be important for builders, plumbers, electricians, mechanics and others that perform important home and automotive services. These stores can reduce crowds and offer more touchless systems for picking up supplies.

Grocery Stores – People will continue to need groceries and safe ways to shop. Some grocery stores are already moving towards limiting the number of people in the store at any given time to keep aisles clearer. When a customers finish shopping, the next customers are texted to invite them inside.

People don’t like crowded wait areas, even in the best of times. These days social distancing requires an even higher standard of avoiding crowds, and letting customers and patients wait in their cars can be a valuable option for businesses to provide.

Waitlist Me Platinum subscriptions include options to completely customize how the web widget and kiosk look. You would need some web development skills to modify the HTML, CSS, and Javascript like you would for a web page.

To get started, log in to www.waitlist.me and navigate to Account > Settings > Add Yourself. Scroll to the bottom and select Edit to make changes to either the web widget or the kiosk. If you are using both, you can copy changes from one to the other after you’re done setting it up. Or you can edit them independently to make them look and function differently. Leave it toggled to Off until you’re ready to debut your new widget.

You can load one of our default templates to get you started and make changes from there. There are three main steps that can be customized:

Main View – Customize the screen customers start on to greet them with messaging and imagery that fits your brand.

Input View – Decide the important information fields to include and the instructions you provide to customers. There are separate views for Joining the Waitlist and Making Reservations/Appointments depending on what options you allow.

Confirmation View – Finish with your own thank you or welcome message and imagery.

Refer to this documentation for the technical instructions to fully customize your widget.

Over the last decade, the restaurant week concept has found its way to communities across the United States. Conceived by restaurateur Joe Baum and Tim Zagat of the Zagat Survey, restaurant week has led to huge gains for the food and beverage industry. Some restaurants have seen as high as a 40-percent increase in customer volume during the promotional period.

Because many restaurant week customers are first-timers, this period is also the ideal time for dining establishments to capture repeat business. Ready to score some new regulars? Here’s how to wow everyone who walks through your door during restaurant week.

Land a great first impression

In Waitlist Me HQ’s hometown, Charleston, S.C., restaurant week is a twice-yearly event with additional, neighborhood-specific weeks thrown into the mix as well.  Many a hidden gem have earned stand-out word-of-mouth rep thanks to excellent restaurant week showings.

Earning that sweet referral business starts the moment your guests walk through the door. Comfortable seating, warm lighting, and plenty of heated or cooled space for guests to stand upon entry are vital. If you’re planning on making any upgrades, do so before the week is set to start—and if you’re painting or doing anything odiferous, schedule your refresh with plenty of time to air out any lingering fumes.

Craft a memorable menu

One restaurant week bummer we hear about regularly is this one: Chefs create delectable special menus, but they’re devoid of house specialties that new customers are hoping to try during the promotion.

Depending on your restaurant’s price-point and the promotional restrictions enforced by your restaurant week’s organizer, it might not be possible for you to offer all the goodies that are must-haves for your regular menu. We encourage you to try to find a way to bring popular picks to this more limited menu, too. Appetizer portions and tasting platters are two possible ways to make this happen.

Get the word out early

Large-scale community events are typically coordinated by a local chamber of commerce or another business-oriented organization. For restaurant weeks, food and wine festivals, and other tasty opportunities, these orgs tend to put together event guides or listings. To maximize your customer volume, it’s essential that your business be included in these publications.

Figuring out what you need to do to get your restaurant on the map, so to speak, is a cinch. Some tech-savvy chambers will offer orientation-style information online for restaurant owners and managers. However, you can always call your chamber to find out what information you need to send to the right people. Remember, they’re there to help!

Upgrade your customer service tech

Of all the bad times to have a waitlist snafu, restaurant week is one of the worst. We created Waitlist Me so that your restaurant doesn’t have to worry about getting your guests from your waiting area to your dining room; our tech helps you quote more accurate times and prevent walkaways.

Waitlist Me is a simple waitlist and reservation app that you can implement today. With a single glance, your host can see how many people are in line, how long they’ve been waiting, and when they’ll make it to their table. You can also easily add our web widget to your restaurant’s website and let your customers hop in line from wherever they are.