When a customer who is on the waitlist or has a reservation sends you a text, you are able to see their text reply. This helps you know when a customer decided not to come so you can remove them from the list, if they are on their way so you can hold their table, or if they have something else to ask or tell you. With a Pro subscription, you can send open text replies to customer texts for more flexible communications.
Another Pro feature we have recently added is the option to enable an audio alert or visual highlighting when customers send you text messages. Normally you would see a note in the customer row when they send you a text, and the full details of texts sent and received when tapping on the customer row. The new alert features make it easier to know when a customer replies and which customer replied by playing a sound and flashing the area of the notes to attract your attention to the right spot to look.
Here’s how to set these up. If you use Waitlist Me in a computer browser, make sure you’re using the new version (there’s an option at the top of the waitlist to switch to the new version). Then on the top right of the main waitlist page click on the Settings gear icon and go to Custom Behaviors > Receiving Texts. Here you can turn on options to play a sound and/or highlight the section of the waitlist that has the text response alert for a customer. These settings will apply to any devices using the web version.
In the Waitlist Me apps, the Custom Behavior settings are device-dependent, so you can choose whether to have them on or off for each different tablet or phone you’re using. In the app, go to the gear icon > Customization > Custom Behaviors > Receiving Texts to edit these options. Once turned on, you would hear a chime and see the highlighted area when you have the app open on your device.
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.
Renting shoes and perfecting the art of bowling-without-bumpers is a favorite memory of Waitlist Me’s app developers, and we’re thrilled that our favorite outing of old is back in favor with everyone from teens to millennials to families with kids.
Seeing a surge in your clown shoe-clad customers? Waitlist Me is a waitlist and reservation app that can help you smoothly manage the increase in traffic—and turn new customers into loyal fans.
Here are 3 ways our app can help any bowling alley gain new business (and improve customer service) today.
Prevent walk-outs when there’s a wait
A line at the door can make any strike-happy group turn tail and hit up a pizza parlor or movie theater, instead. Waitlist Me helps you keep customers regardless of your wait time. How? By making that line disappear.
Thanks to unlimited text notifications for users in the U.S. (and pay-as-you-go texting for Waitlist Me’s international plans), you can add groups to your waitlist and then let them roam free until a lane becomes available. They could grab cheese fries and a pitcher of beer at your snack stand, shoot pool and play PAC-MAN in your arcade, or window-shop their way down the street. When they’re first in line, you can send them a heads-up via text.
Perfect for:
– Bowling alleys with limited staffing (or a small waiting area)
– Checking in large groups during peak business hours
– Bowling alleys facing lots of local competing attractions
Give large groups a great time
You brought in snacks and arcade games to serve your bowlers better. But those add-ons don’t have to be after thoughts. Now, with large groups looking for impromptu hang-out spaces, your bowling alley is primed to offer a variety of fun options for everyone, including the non-bowlers in the bunch.
You can use Waitlist Me to give everyone a chance to do whatever it is that floats their boat…without making ‘em stand around in long lines by themselves. How? Waitlist Me is flexible enough to be used for people waiting for lanes, your in-house food area, or even popular games like air hockey. Text ‘em when it’s their turn, ensuring that they’re never sacrificing quality time with friends and family to hold their place in line. You can manage lines for different activities with status colors or even set up a separate waitlist for areas that have regular waits.
Perfect for:
– Booking birthday parties, office outings, and other celebrations
– Special events, like trivia nights and karaoke
– Attracting big crowds for bowling league competitions
Make it easy for customers to choose your bowling alley
Who wants a hassle for what should be a fun happy hour outing? Not your guests! That’s why it’s essential to make it a cinch for your customers to decide to shoot the breeze at your business rather than another spot down the block. A parking lot and food specials are a great way to get ‘em coming in your door. Another tool to have in your back pocket: Waitlist Me.
The app is built to handle waitlists and reservations side-by-side, so you can forget about that mess of sticky notes cluttering up your front counter. Customers can call before they come, walk right in, or even add themselves to your waitlist or make a reservation online. And, thanks to the public waitlist feature, they can check your ETA from wherever they are, whether that’s the water cooler, the bar next door, or the parking lot.
Building on our launch of table section management features a few months ago, we have added some new features to make it even easier to know where to seat the next customer. Labeled mode displays valuable activity metrics, section notes help you track servers covering each section, and additional waitlist integration makes it faster to do more from the table management screen. Here is a video that highlights some of these new features and shows more on how to set up your section and layout management strategies:
Labeled mode
In “Labeled” mode, you’ll also see additional details about each section. The “Open” metric shows the number of available tables as well as the total available seats at those tables. The “Filled” metric shows the percentage of seats occupied in a section along with the counts of the occupied and total seats. These key stats help make smarter decisions faster. For instance, when a group comes in that’s too big for one table, you can instantly see which sections have enough empty tables, with enough empty seats, to accommodate them. And you can also see how many of the seats in each section are filled, and ensure that each server gets their fair share of the work, not just their fair share of the tables. These metrics are also visible in the “Size” and “Status” sorts for seeing breakdowns of availability by table size or overall status.
Section Notes
You can add comments to each section—for instance, to identify who’s working where, or to leave a reminder about a special event. Just tap “Add Notes,” fill in your remarks, and then tap “Save.” Instead of having to set up complicated server scheduling or other section tracking processes, the notes feature lets you make updates faster and more naturally. It’s as easy as the common practice of writing server names on a laminated floor plan, but with all the advantages that our app has to offer for seeing real-time data, easily knowing where to seat the next customer, syncing information across devices, and more.
More Waitlist Integration
If you like working within the table management view of the app, it is nice to be able to assign customers from the waitlist, notify them their table is ready, and seat them at the table without having to switch back to the waitlist view. Now you can.
From the action bar, when you tap on add, you can choose someone who’s already on your waiting list, and serve them at that table, right now. If the table is already occupied, this removes the old party from the waitlist, and seats the new one, with one tap.
Or, if you’re not ready to seat them yet, you can just “assign” them to use that table next. If the new customer has stepped away, you can even make the assignment and also send them an SMS text message, asking them to come back. When they’re ready to take their seats, just tap on the table, and then tap “Next.”
You can also add a new customer by tapping a table. Just fill in their name, phone number, and other details. The table has already been selected, so you can go ahead and seat the customer right now, or add them to your waitlist, or even make a reservation, all in one place.
Quick Seating
When you aren’t crowded you probably seat customers at tables without taking their name. You can still track that the table is occupied and for how long by using the status button in the action bar. This makes it easy to keep track of your availability without having to create a customer for each table. You may want to start tracking your table availability at a certain time, like before it gets busy, and you can mark all your tables that are currently occupied all at once. Just press and hold on one table to use the multi-select feature, then tap on all the tables that are occupied, and then tap the status button to make them occupied.
If you’ve been out to eat lately at any number of casual dining options, you’ve likely witnessed the growing popularity of pay-at-the-table services now available at restaurants large and small. It doesn’t take long to realize the significant upsides they offer. No more waving down waiters to get your check? No more tapping your toes while you wait for your receipt? This technology is a customer service game-changer.
What does this sort of service look like? Pay-at-the-table point-of-sale tech comes in a few different flavors. Keep reading to find out what they are and how they benefit different types of restaurants.
Tablets maximize ordering convenience
Early adopters, like Smokey Bones Bar & Fire Grill, introduced a tablet-style device that stays at the table. Diners can often use these devices not only to close out their tab at the end of their meal, but also to order food and beverages throughout their stay at a restaurant.
Many of these devices are also able to educate customers about membership or loyalty programs, daily specials, or featured menu options. And because they’re digital, they can offer glossy, mouth-watering photography that entices diners to order more items, like appetizers or desserts, or guide them towards items that offer a better margin for your bottom line.
This style of device has also filled a gap in settings like fast casual restaurants and eat-in bars where diners are offered full menus without traditional table service. Now, customers can order at their convenience without needing to wait in line or catch the eye of a busy bartender. In addition, it can help open-all-day restaurants provide prompt service with limited staff.
Hand-helds improve payment speed
More recently, restaurants have been introducing a new type of pay-at-the-table device. It’s a handheld unit used by servers to capture the entire dining experience, from beginning to end.
Traditionally, waiters memorize or scribble down orders on notebook pages. This heightens the risk of error when they need to transcribe their notes for the kitchen or transferring tables between shifts. Using this sort of pay-at-the-table device, though, servers can now input orders directly into a digital order management system. There’s no forgetting who wanted a margarita without the salt, who requested a sandwich with no pickles, and who needs a side of mayo with their fries. Happy customers 100-percent of the time? That’s the name of the game!
In addition to managing orders, servers are also able to use these pay-at-the-table devices as hand-held registers. Swiping credit or debit cards—by far the most popular method of payment option in dining establishments—adding tips, and printing receipts is literally in the palm of their hand. This is a boon for restaurants with tons of traffic. It increases table turnover and decreases the amount of stress on servers because they can now get more accomplished in a single visit to a table. Less-frazzled wait staff means a better work experience for them, a better dining experience for your customers, and a better bottom-line for restaurant owners and managers.
Another customer convenience game-changer? Waitlist Me
Keeping customers waiting can have a devastating impact on a restaurant. They might order less, tip less, leave a bad review, or walk out your door, never to return. Waitlist Me is an app that keeps customers happy while they wait.
How do we do that, exactly? It’s a breeze. Waitlist Me brings your waitlist from the lobby of your restaurant to an easy-to-manage digital interface. Our app makes it easy to see waiting customers at a glance, provide accurate wait estimates that are tracked in real time, and notify customers with a text or automated call message when their table is ready. It also has a number of other features like reservations, table management, and the ability for customers to add themselves from a kiosk, your website, or even Google.
