Waitlist Me offers the Add Yourself Web Widget to make serving customers quick and easy, whether you prefer they reserve a time in advance or simply join the list if there’s a wait. Advanced scheduling just got even easier with our new email reservation features. 

If your business wants to send automated reminders or needs additional information from customers before they arrive, then emails can be a great option. Also, they are not counted towards the bundled notification limits included with each subscription (US & Canada) or charged separately (all other international users/plans).

Enabling email notifications – To enable, navigate to the Notification settings for reservations (Settings > Customization > Notifications > Reservation). The Usage options let you choose whether the messages go out manually (by pressing the notification in the customer row in the waitlist view) or automatically (“Scheduled” option in the settings). In either case, the waitlist view notes and customer visit area of the edit view will show you when emails have been sent.

Customizing email notifications – Every email notification will automatically include the scheduled time of the reservation along with location information. In addition, it will include a customizable “Intro Message” that appears at the top of the email and can be used as an introduction or used to include basic instructions. Please note that there is a limit of 160 characters for the text in this area as it is intended to be simple. Pro Users can use the “HTML Display option”  to customize the body of the email to include images, provide more detailed instructions and more. Below is an example of these parts of the email.

Changing and cancelling – Email notifications also include a link for your guests to “Change or Cancel” their reservation/appointment. This link opens a browser window on their phone or computer where they can select a different time or cancel their existing reservation altogether. A standard email confirming any change will go out automatically.

The week coronavirus hit the United States, grocery stores around the nation announced a similar plan: They were going to stagger shopping times to minimize the spread of COVID-19 to the sectors of the population thought to be most vulnerable, the elderly and the immune-compromised.

Most stores’ plans restricted an hour or two of morning grocery shopping time to these customers—and in doing so, introduced a new phrase to the lexicon: staggered waiting.

Wait. Isn’t all waiting staggered?

The short answer: nope.

The old-school, American-style queue amounts to a mosh pit of toe-tapping customers. During normal circumstances, that’s not a good thing. It’s frustrating for your guests and it often leads to lost business. During a pandemic, it’s even worse. You don’t want tons of people crowded together, huffing hot air all over each other!

Waitlists and reservation tools, like Waitlist Me, help businesses stagger waiting in a way that’s become quite familiar. For business owners, it helps even out the traffic flow, ensuring excellent customer service and zero employee overwhelm. For customers, it ensures a positive, efficient experience. Win-win!

Grocery stores are using the idea of staggered waiting a bit differently than most of us are used to, but it’s not actually a new idea. In fact, you’ve probably experienced it before.

How billion-dollar businesses use staggered waiting

Disneyland, the pinnacle of efficient queues, uses a staggered waiting system to provide an extra-special experience to its VIP guests, many of whom visit the parks through organizations like Make A Wish. It’s also offered as a premium, upgraded feature for ticketholders.

Another example of staggered waiting happens weekly at many Target stores across the country. The big box retailer has offered sensory-free shopping hours for customers who are sensitive to light, noise, and crowds for years. It’s been a huge success, especially for those on the autism spectrum.

Ways your business can use staggered waiting today

If you’re looking for new ways to control crowds or traffic patterns, staggered waiting is a concept you should explore. Not sure how that might look for your workplace? Creative ideas can come from different places, and you can look around at what others are doing.  Here are a few examples of how businesses can stagger demand to improve workflows and better cope with COVID-19.

Quick tip: Use Waitlist Me’s custom text notifications to share new waiting policies or instructions with your clients and customers.

– Veterinary office using morning hours for feline appointments and afternoon hours for canine appointments to keep small waiting areas calm.

– Restaurants offering special deals or menu items at different times of the day to encourage people to dine at off-peak hours.

– Tutoring center facilitating study material pick-up staggered by the first letter of students’ last names.

– Auto mechanic offering reverse delivery appointment windows to pick-up cars (and meet with customers) at home rather than at the shop.

– Local organic farmer providing fresh produce home delivery staggered by their customers’ area.

– Doctor’s office splitting patient appointments by background. Immune-compromised and elderly patients are diagnosed car-side, while other patients come inside the office.

– Family-owned pharmacy providing special hours for curbside delivery and in-store pick-up.

At Waitlist Me, we are always working on making the service better. We aspire to help more businesses improve wait experiences and customer service, and ultimately improve their business results. And we hope to help more of their customers save time, have a better day, and be happier.

It is a challenge for any company developing software or apps to know and execute on the most important ways to build a great product and service. There is no single correct path to take, but for us we think it takes a talented team, a focused mission, a lot of passion and hard work, some luck, and a few other things.

For a peek into the history and culture of Waitlist Me, check out this article. Waitlist Me CEO, Brian Hutchins, was recently interviewed as part of The Charleston Digital Corridor’s Leadership Profile Series, which is focused on the individuals who are driving the Charleston tech scene forward.

It’s a retailer’s dream to boast a line long enough to wrap around a city block. A lot of the promos and products you dream up might even be designed to attract these 6-o’clock-news-worthy waits. Think: Black Friday doorbusters, innovative croissant-donut hybrids, and once-in-a-lifetime bear-stuffing deals.

But the reality? Well, it’s not as dreamy as it seems. In fact, it’s kind of nightmare. The history of long lines is plagued with stampedes, riots, and heat stroke victims. Yikes!

And that’s just for the people who join those long lines. For every customer that’s willing to wait, there are tens to hundreds that won’t be. Think about it this way: What would you wait hours for? What would make you want to camp out on a sidewalk?

If you did it at all, it would have to be for something truly incredible. A dinner at a new-to-the-neighborhood restaurant? Not likely. A shopping spree at a boutique? No way. An after-work drink? Forget it. A pilates class? Never.

How a long line hurts your business

A long line might get you a few dozen customers who are willing to wait in exchange for a first look or a door prize. But at what expense? That line might stretch wayyy down the street, but when hundreds of other passersby see it, they’re going to think that your business is the last place they want to be.

Sure, they might stop and ask what the line is for. Sure, they might talk about your establishment. Most of that conversation may be negative, though. Many of those on-lookers are going to be saying, “Some people waited 3 hours for a burger. How dumb is that?!” rather than: “The line for the best burger in town was 3 hours long yesterday. I’m going to go get one tonight!”

The truth is that long lines alienate customers. They dissuade people from giving you a chance. Potential customers have long memories. They will remember one or two long wait times, and forever associate you with inconvenience. Those customers are going to go somewhere else.

Why? Because…

* They don’t want to hop on the next-cool-thing bandwagon. Some customers instinctually rebel against hype. They’ll opt for a just-as-good competitor, instead. And because they didn’t have to wait, they’ll perceive your rival as being better than you are simply due to that lack of a long line.

* They’re worried the customer service stinks. Long lines can indicate efficiency problems. Guests encounter them and assume that someone at the front is lollygagging or that you’re understaffed. That’s ding No.-1 against your reputation for a top-notch guest experience.

* They aren’t interested in hanging out in a crowd. Some folks love feeling like sardines packed in a tin, but most don’t. A crowded business creates unnecessary pressure on the customer to hurry through their experience, regardless of whether they’re shopping, eating, or doing something else.

* They’re concerned something is wrong. Have you run out of the product you’re running a promo for? Are the cash registers down? Are you understaffed? Is this whole waiting-in-a-crazy-long-line thing all going to be for naught? Cue customer anxiety.

A better alternative

It is great when you have something everyone wants, but you don’t have to make them suffer in a long crazy line to get it. Waitlist Me makes it easy to manage a line virtually rather than physically. Add people to your waitlist so they know they have a spot in line and have visibility into the wait process, while allowing them the flexibility to walk around or do something else while they wait. Then simply press a button to notify them with a text message when it is their term. It is simple, and effective.

From picking cocoa beans as a young boy on the Ivory Coast to being handpicked to work for Wolfgang Puck at Spago, Francois Kwaku-Dongo’s journey to becoming a world-class chef has nothing if not an air of earthy sophistication.

That blend is reflected in his food at eleven14 Kitchen at The JHouse in Greenwich, CT—where he balances direct-from-farm produce and locally raised meats (think grilled chicken with chopped market-vegetable salad) with exquisite presentation and taste (think chocolate in gold leaf with almond dacquoise and nougatine)—and in the way he runs the restaurant.

“The 51%,” says Kwaku-Dongo. “That’s what we look for. The unspoken qualities in a person that make them undeniably good at what they do. The other 49% is skill, knowledge, experience, which can be taught, learned, or trained. We look for staff members that are gregarious, inquisitive, and joyful; the ones who are excited by the interaction of food, drink, and people.”

An innate drive, enthusiasm, and delight in their work is matched with a highly developed system for efficiency and superior customer service to surround the top notch chef with a top notch crew. Most importantly, this translates into a phenomenal experience for customers to drive them in the door.

“Since seating in our highly in-demand patio space is on a first-come first-serve basis, our living room lounge often fills up quickly with guests vying for a table,” says Kwaku-Dongo. “We have even had parties offer money to other parties in exchange for a better wait time for the patio.”

It’s great to have demand, but it’s not going to help the chef wow them if people are tired of waiting, either for their food or their tables. So when asked about how his restaurant manages high-demand and high-volume seating, he points to NoshList.

“The Nosh app is used by a number of our staff, and as a result we heard the early mumblings of the [at the time] forthcoming WaitList,” he says. “It certainly beats staring at that annoying flashing beeping racket, imploring it to release you from waitlist purgatory; or wondering if the host perhaps wrote your name on the wrong piece of paper (and the promo video gets a laugh or two as well.)”

Kwaku-Dongo’s blend of sophistication and simplicity has a bit in common with NoshList. He believes less complicate equals less problems. If you can deliver that from the moment the customer walk into the door, then you are on your way to stellar reviews and growth. More importantly, you have one less headache to worry about.

So while you’re waiting to try Chef Kwaku-Dongo’s sea-salt-crusted baked striped bass with baby artichoke, spaghetti zucchini, heirloom tomato, and chanterelles, NoshList will let you know when it’s your turn and let Kwaku-Dongo’s staff know exactly who is where and how long they’ve waited. It’s a simple sign of 21st-century management balanced with the simple sign by the wood oven that reads, “Today’s wood is apple.”