Waiting is never fun wherever you are. NoshList started as an app to help restaurants manage their waitlists and send text and phone notifications to guests when their tables were ready, and is now used by many types of businesses to improve the customer experience whenever there are waits. Here is a great example of a smart business owner at Kumon that uses NoshList not only to to shorten wait times for students ready to be picked up, but also to improve child safety, performance excellence, and business efficiencies.

Kumon® Learning Centers have an after-school academic enrichment program designed to help children achieve more than they ever thought they could. The centers strive to teach self-learning and achievement in the academic areas of reading and math through an enrichment program that outlines steady goals for each student.

Most students spend 30-60 minutes during their individual sessions and are required to attend sessions two times a week.

“The philosophy of Kumon is to build mastery of the subject. Each subject is divided into a series of levels and each level is focused on a learning fundamental built on top of the previous ones,” said Krishnadas Kootale who partners with his wife Geeta Krishnadas as Kumon Franchise operators for the Kumon Denville – South Center in New Jersey. “Because this is a long-term program, we try to make it sustainable over the long haul.”

Each child is required to do homework and each one is given the time and patience needed to build greater mental stamina and focus. The goal, Kootale said, is to help the child build a strong foundation of knowledge and learning skills that they can carry with them throughout their academic career and beyond.

While the program is taught in a safe environment, Geeta and Kootale were a little concerned with what happens sometimes after class. While parents are required to pick up the children from the waiting area and children required to wait in the reception area until their parents arrive once a session is complete, sometimes students would leave the premises into the parking lot looking for their parents.

Since the location was near a state highway, the couple wanted to take extra steps to ensure the safety of their students. “Whenever you have kids, parking lots and roads nearby there are always safety concerns,” Kootale said. “We didn’t want the children to move around unattended.”

While thinking about solutions for the waiting children, Kootale discovered how NoshList was used by restaurants to manage their waitlists. He was able to easily check out the app, and realized it was a perfect fit for his needs.

Now, when a student checks into the Kootale’s learning center, the parent’s contact information entered into the NoshList waitlist. At that point an alert goes out to the parent providing an estimated time to session completion. This eliminates the guesswork involved for parents who may be looking to run an errand or so while their children are in class. Once a student’s session is complete, Noshlist sends a message to the parent’s phone alerting that the child is ready for pick up. Once the parent arrives at Kumon, they enter into a classroom to check out their child and then leave together.

“The primary reason we considered NoshList was to set up a check-in check out system with parent alerts to avoid children moving unattended, which was not something we wanted,” Kootale said. “Parents like the flexibility of being able to leave during their child’s session and then be alerted when the session is completed; and with Noshlist we have such a system helping us ensure that parents drop off and pick up children at the reception area.”

While using NoshList, Kootale realized there were other benefits he hadn’t originally expected. With the analytics features, they are able to track each student’s time used in the center. They then cross reference the student’s study time against their performance, which helps them improve the educational experience for that child.

“At any time, we have the live list of the students in class. Anyone who takes longer on their studies, or who finishes sooner, we have that information in real time. We use that information for class review and plan management,” Kootale said. “This real-time information is quite valuable to us.”

“It’s really a great app!” Kootale said.

– By Valerie Killifer, special to NoshList

We are excited to announce a new POS integration for our popular wait list app that will allow restaurant operators to better manage their guest experience. Working with Clover, an all-in-one POS solution with an open platform, NoshList is one of the first apps available on the Clover app marketplace. NoshList is exhibiting with Clover and First Data at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in booth #80203. CES takes place Jan. 7-10 in Las Vegas.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to show off NoshList with Clover at CES,” said NoshList CEO, Craig Walker. “It makes sense to tie the POS and wait list management pieces together and we love how Clover’s open-platform makes it possible to improve the guest experience in completely new ways. We are already working on a number of new features that would only be possible through their platform.”

The NoshList app on Clover makes it simple for any restaurant owner, operator or general manager to manage their wait list and POS all from one place. The app makes getting started with NoshList a snap, and will automatically pull the merchant’s information into NoshList when signing up. More features using other integration touch points are coming soon.

“NoshList adds tremendous value to our restaurant customers,” said Mark Schulze, vice president of Business Development at Clover Network Inc. “By replacing buzzers and shouting with text messages, our customers can not only give better service to their diners, but also get valuable data about frequent diners and past visits.”

It is probably not a surprise that Valentine’s Day is one of the busiest days of the year for restaurants. According to the Statistic Brain Research Institute, Valentine’s spending tops 13 billion dollars, and of the people that celebrate the holiday, more than a third of them head out to restaurants. When you’re making the special preparations to set the right ambiance for your restaurant, don’t forget about the experience your customers will have before they make it to their tables. For those guests who didn’t call ahead to make a reservation, take the pain out of waiting with Waitlist Me.

Customers are happier when they can check their place in line and have the freedom to leave the hostess area, which translates into less walkaways and higher customer satisfaction. Waitlist Me can also speed up table turns so you can seat more people each day. So you win on both sides, being better able to manage the surge in visitors on Valentine’s Day and offering superior customer service in the process.

In search of something romantic, many guests will try someplace new on Valentine’s Day instead of their regular hangouts. Make a great first impression that will keep these first timers coming back. Let Waitlist Me help you today.

Don’t let Amazon’s billion-dollar bank account make you close up shop. Sure, ecommerce is gaining traction, but that doesn’t mean retail is dead. Far from it!

It’s time for a retail revolution. It’s time for boutiques, mom-and-pop shops, and big-box stores alike to delve deep into the one frontier ecommerce institutions can’t touch: one-one-one customer service. Make it your No.-1 selling point, and you’ll turn walk-ins into loyal customers, and loyal customers into raving fans.

Keep reading for our best tips on how to improve your retail store’s customer service today with a little help from Waitlist Me, a waitlist and appointment app.

Ax the long check-out line (and turn returns into exchanges)

As the holiday season comes into view, we can look forward to swelling lines and swelling tempers. Instead of forcing customers into wait in endless serpentines or a series of parallel lines, try using a waitlist. When customers leave fitting rooms or start heading toward the register, add them to the list. While they wait, let them wander…and maybe add another item or two to their basket.

Set customers free from dressing room lines

What’s worse than a long line? Easy: waiting in one with hangers digging into your forearm. For those shoppers who know they’re going to try on a closet’s worth of clothes, Waitlist Me’s kiosk mode makes it a cinch for them to hop on line for a dressing room as they rifle through your clothing racks. A fitting room attendant can call them over (or text them!) when they make it to the front of the line.

Offer appointments for special shopping trips

Whether they’re hunting for 52-inch HDTVs or formal dresses, there are all sorts of different occasions where shoppers walk into stores looking for assistance. Using a simple appointment system, like the one built in to Waitlist Me, allows these customers to arrive knowing that they’re going to get VIP treatment from a sales associate who can help them find whatever it is they want to open their wallets for.

Transform complaints into kudos

When there’s only one manager on the floor to handle everything from returns to complaints about that one employee who’s having a bad day, everyone feels frustrated. A waitlist is a simple solution to keep guests happy and staffers on their A-game, and thanks to Waitlist Me’s multi-device sync feature, every employee has access to it. It makes for a smooth customer service experience (and far fewer ruffled feathers).

Create a complementary personal shopper service

Personal shopping isn’t just for jet-setters! Any retailer, from luxe boutiques to thrift stores, can bring superior service to every single customer who wants it, simply by giving them the option. Waitlist Me offers a same-day reservations feature. Shoppers can book a time that works for them and leave a note with what they’re looking for, and you can staff up (and set aside a dressing room) accordingly.

Taking advantage of new technologies can have a big impact on your bottom line. Here are a few pro tips:

Crush Your Rush

No one likes to wait, but when things get busy you can reduce walkaways by improving your customers’ wait experience. Waitlist Me is an app that helps you provide better wait estimates and send customers text notifications when their tables are ready. You can even display a dynamic view of the waitlist for customers to check on a digital sign or TV with solutions like Enplug and BrightSign.

Leverage the Cloud

As the quality, price, and usability of hosted technology have improved dramatically in recent years, businesses are dumping old hardware for cloud-centric solutions. Clover is a new all-in-one POS system with an elegant design that replaces the cash register, payment terminal, receipt printer, and barcode scanner and has an app market for easily customizing features. Another example, Switch, is a cloud-based business phone system you can set up and customize in minutes, and
provides the type of features you’d want from a PBX at a fraction of the price.

Work Digitally Like a Pro

Just as email revolutionized regular mail for many of our communications, there are now more online documents, apps, and tools that can improve your business productivity. Google for Work is a powerful set of apps that let you communicate, create, share and collaborate, from any device with ease. Evernote is a popular consumer app that has recently added more team and admin features to help businesses manage digital workspaces. Finally, UberConference is a simple way to make unlimited conference for free from a computer or a phone.