The holidays are coming up. You know what that means: a rush of customers eager to snap up the next big tech toy.  If you can’t manage the wait times effectively, though, your customers are guaranteed to be toe-tapping their way around your displays as they wait for the next available associate. Or worse, they may just head to another store.

Waitlist Me Pro can help you turn your customers’ visit to your store into an experience they’ll be more satisfied with. Think: more referral business, glowing Google reviews, and kudos from corporate. Read on for ways our pro-level app will help you do business better.

Schedule your staff more efficiently

Prepare for the storm by tracking your team in real time and accessing reports on staffers’ past performance.

Waitlist Me Pro’s hallmark feature is resource management and reporting. The app lets you assign your associates to different areas of the store (or to different tasks), track how much time they spend with each customer, and see who is working the most and who is working the least. With this data in hand, you’re better prepared to make decisions about serving customers as things get busy.

Add promotions to your public waitlist

Running a special on certain devices or services? Sponsoring an old phone holiday drive? Recycling batteries or chargers? Let your customers know when they check in, thanks to Waitlist Me Pro’s customizable public waitlist.

This pro-level feature lets you add whatever HTML you want to the waitlist. You could include graphics, coupon codes, videos, or plain text, in addition to changing the page’s colors, adding your logo, and swapping out the wording to bring your brand voice to the app’s functionality.

Let customers add themselves to your waitlist, no matter where they are

With Waitlist Me Pro, customers no longer have to start their waiting from your store. They can use the web widget—which Pro allows you to customize more—to add themselves to your waitlist from wherever they are. It’s web and mobile friendly, which means they can access it from home or on the go.

Combine the add-me remote feature with our public waitlist and text notifications, and you’ve got the ideal customer experience. Waitlist Me Pro lets your customers live their lives, run their errands, and make their appointments—and they’ll never worry about losing their place in line.

Quote more accurate wait times

There is nothing worse than waiting around twice as long as the time initially quoted. The app has always helped store associates predict more accurate ETAs. But with Waitlist Me Pro, you can take making better estimates to the next level.

By being able to see in real-time which of your staffers are busy and which are available as well as how much time they’ve spent with each customer and when, on average, they should finish up. With Pro, you have more data at your fingertips to make smarter decisions faster.

Got, say, 15 minutes to kill before your train pulls in? How about a couple hours while you wait for the new donut bakery’s latest flavor? Or maybe an easy 5 for the next available operator?

Whether you’re waiting to talk to a manager or to grab a table, these 27 factoids about the lists we love to hate will keep you occupied. Happy toe-tapping!

You’ll spend an average of 2 years of your life waiting in line. Sorry in advance. https://www.therichest.com/shocking/15-weird-and-depressing-facts-about-waiting-in-line/

You’ll feel less anxious if there’s a single line rather than multiple lines. It feels fairer that way, but you’re still going to worry about line-cutters. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/27/what-you-hate-about-waiting-in-line-isnt-the-wait-at-all

Americans hate the DMV the most. Honorable mention: customer service hotlines.

But Americans love waiting for some things. Like event tickets, delicious food, and Splash Mountain.

And the more something costs, the longer people are willing to wait. See: iPhones, Hamilton tickets, and Splash Mountain.

The key to keeping waitlisted customers content: Distract them. Give them something to do, watch, or read while they wait.

In New York, you wait “on line.” Sorry, grammar nerds. http://mentalfloss.com/article/82257/12-impatient-facts-about-waiting-line

It takes a lifetime to get Green Bay Packers season tickets. Only 90 or so are released every year. With a waitlist of over 130,000 fans (many of whom were added by their parents when they were born), you’re talking about decades of playing wait-and-see. https://247sports.com/nfl/green-bay-packers/Bolt/Green-Bay-Packers-season-ticket-wait-list-at-133000-people–113926844/

Good news: approximate wait times make lines seem shorter! It gives you something concrete to look forward to.

Bummer: Statisticians have noticed an increase in “waiting culture.” Trendy neighborhoods and affluent cities are seeing an influx in no-reservations policies at hip new restaurants, which means waits are becoming the norm in some areas. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/upshot/the-upside-of-waiting-in-line.html

You’ll always see waitlists hit the nightly news on Black Friday. Throw a gaming system in the mix, and all bets are off.

The Netflix queue was created by chief product officer Neil Hunt. He’s British. In August 2013, Netflix ditched it’s infamous “instant queue” in favor of the “my list” feature. https://newrepublic.com/article/116996/netflix-queue-and-history-british-word-america

The Netflix thing makes sense when you know that the word “queue” is super British. It’s so British, it’s included in citizenship tests.

Well, the actual word “queue” is French. It was defined to mean “a line” in 1837 by Thomas Carlyle, who likened the line-up of people he saw outside shops in France to a man’s ponytail, which the French called “a queue.”

The most iconic British queue is at the bus stop. Forget about snapping selfies in front of a phone booth. Pull up a piece of pavement, instead. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23087024

The politest queue of them all is for Wimbledon’s final matches. Tennis whites suggested but not required. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23087024

You’re least likely to see a queue at the local pub. And, alas, it’s probably where it would most come in handy, too. Anyone for a pint?

The quintessential queue joke: “What is this queue for?” “I don’t know, but I’ll find out when I get to the front!” Seriously, people say this.

There’s also a legend about the people who study the psychology of waiting. It goes something like, “a lawyer, a secretary, and an ad exec are waiting for an elevator…”

Canadians use the term “lineup.” Turns out they kick butt at merging in traffic.

And Canucks are better than Brits at some queues—er, lineups. When waiters need to organize their own lineups, like at building entrances or street-front ATMs, Canadians are the champs.

If you want an even more polite lineup than those found in Canada, head to Japan. http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/everyone-line-up-canadas-tradition-of-orderly-queuing-foreign-and-strange-to-many-newcomers

Also: Canadians hate line-cutters. Tourists beware!

If you cut in line, you stand a 10-percent chance of getting shoved. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170320-we-hate-to-admit-it-but-brits-arent-the-best-at-queuing

Australians wait the longest for new iPhones—and they get them first. That’s because the sun rises in the east, of course. In 2015, Lindsay Handmer camped for 2 days to get the iPhone 6, and he did it to bring awareness to the homeless who sleep on the streets nightly. YouTube star Mazen Kourouche camped for 10 days…and then the launch event was delayed. Whoops! https://www.pymnts.com/apple/2017/iphone-release-iphone-sales-news/

You have to wait in line on Mount Everest! So much for that “alone at the top of the world” feeling. Also: Sometimes people die in line. Yikes.

The longest line in the world is the Haaj. This religious pilgrimage to Mecca takes place every year in Saudi Arabia.

Waitlist Me has a couple options for allowing customers to add themselves to the waitlist and reservations.  It also offers variety of ways to customize the process to the needs of different businesses.

A few months ago we released a web widget that businesses can easily add to their websites.  Many businesses told us how much they liked the new widget.  As part of the feedback we received, we found ways we could make implementing and using the new widget even simpler, and we added an option to use the widget on a hosted page.

The new widget page allows businesses to just link to their unique URL from a website, blog, email, or whatever.  The widget page is easier for less tech savvy businesses, and there is no need to involve a web developer to make sure it is added correctly to the website.

The widget page is also especially well-suited for businesses that allow people to add themselves to the list when they arrive at the business.  All you have to do is put the URL into the browser of any tablet and you have your own check-in station.  By setting the widget option to only show the “Add Yourself” screen, and not the estimated wait you might show on a website, it simplifies the page even further. You can also add custom instructions and images to the bottom of the page for more clarity.

When asking customers to enter themselves, the simpler you make the interface, the less chances there are for mistakes and frustration.  The hosted widget page makes it easy for your customers to add themselves, which makes it easier for you.

Red Robin fans, we have great news. The NoshList waitlist app has now been successfully integrated into all Red Robin International, Inc. company-owned restaurants nationwide.

Red Robin International, Inc. currently operates more than 330 company-owned Red Robin® restaurants and chose NoshList based on its industry-leading proprietary telephony technology. Similar to other multi-unit restaurants, Red Robin traditionally used pen-and-paper waitlists and microphone systems to address diners waiting to be seated. Prior to using NoshList, the casual dining chain experienced significant surges in both the front and back of house relative to guest flow during peak times. In February, Red Robin deployed NoshList to 50 locations, quickly rolling out to the remaining company-owned restaurants within 60 days due to the remarkable results.

“Beyond the benefits of waitlist management and improvement in guest experience, restaurants where NoshList had been deployed realized increased seating efficiencies and improved ticket flow through the kitchen making the decision to deploy NoshList to our other locations a no-brainer,” stated Chris Laping, Senior Vice President of Business Transformation and Chief Information Officer for Red Robin International, Inc. “For diners, this translates to shorter wait times, as the time that tables sit empty between parties is minimized to less than 30 seconds in some cases, and improved ticket times, as order flow through the kitchen is steadied.”

Red Robin also selected NoshList as its preferred front-of-house, guest management technology platform because of its simple and intuitive interface, which allows restaurants to implement quickly. The ability for restaurant operators to implement and train staff within minutes minimizes the resources that restaurants typically have to allocate to the introduction of a new piece of technology. Restaurants are better equipped to forecast expenses without worry of increases relative to changes in diner traffic.

Understanding that deployment of technology for multi-unit restaurants is no easy feat, NoshList, through a partnership with iPadEnclosures.com, has designed a “push-button” distribution strategy that can provide restaurants with up to 500 fully provisioned iPads within 7 days. “During phase one of our roll out to Red Robin, NoshList was able to provide 125 fully provisioned iPads to 55 Red Robin locations in a number of days,” says Cody Rose, Director of Restaurant Solutions for Firespotter Labs. “iPads arrived at each specified location provisioned with NoshList and preconfigured with a number of additional options including corporate 3G and/or wifi connectivity settings, screen protectors, a protective iPad Enclosure complete with mounting mechanism, and a free multi-device management solution (‘MDM’) for a truly out-of-box solution that allowed each restaurant to be up and running with NoshList within minutes.”

In today’s fast-paced world, customers expect instant information and seamless experiences. From browsing menus online to making informed decisions at the table, diners crave convenience and clarity. That’s why we are excited to announce Perklist’s new AI Assistant, a tool designed to delight your customers and improve efficiencies for your staff.

We’ve all been there: scrolling through a restaurant’s website, searching for specific menu details, or trying to decipher ingredient lists. This process can be frustrating and time-consuming, potentially deterring customers from placing orders or even visiting your establishment. Similarly, there are times when customers are on site where they may have to wait or delay your staff to get questions answered.

Perklist’s AI Assistant can help with these challenges by improving the accessibility and interactivity of menu and business information. Users can obtain immediate answers to menu-related inquiries in two main ways. First, a conversational chat interface can be integrated directly into a restaurant’s website, enabling customers to ask questions about ingredients, dietary considerations, or dish specifics and receive prompt, accurate responses. Second, for in-restaurant use, QR codes can be placed at tables, providing customers with direct access to the AI assistant via their smartphones. This allows for real-time menu exploration and question-answering during their dining experience.

Perklist AI Assistant offers practical advantages for both customers and restaurants. For customers, it provides immediate access to menu details, reducing the need for lengthy searches or waiting for staff assistance. It facilitates easier menu exploration and informed decision-making, which can contribute to a more efficient and satisfying dining experience.

For restaurants, the AI assistant ensures consistent and up-to-date information is delivered to all customers when they want it. It also reduces the workload on service staff by handling routine menu inquiries, allowing them to focus on more complex customer interactions and providing better overall service. Additionally, the system can promote increased customer interaction with the menu and improve the overall efficiency of handling menu questions.

Getting started is simple and just takes a few minutes. You can sign up for a Perklist account and upload a PDF or image of your menu. Then just embed a few lines of code or print out some QR codes. There are settings for adding more business information and customizing the look and feel if you like, and you can keep track of customer questions in the logs area.

For more information, read more about the Perklist AI Assistant.