Thursday, October 29th, 2020 .

In today’s age of social distancing, some businesses are using QR functionality to increase ‘touchless’ options for customers. For example, it has become more common for restaurants to place QR codes on tables so that customers can use their cell phone to quickly access an online version of their menus.

Waitlist Me has a new feature for generating a QR code to make it easier for customers to join the waitlist while standing outside of a business. All of the Waitlist Me subscriptions include options for businesses to use the Add Yourself Web Widget to let customers join waitlists remotely, and usually customers would access these features from business websites. However, in cases where a customer has already arrived at the business and your staff is unable to greet them in person, adding a QR code to a flyer or sign posted near the front door with some simple instructions can be an easier way to get customers to the web widget and join the waitlist. Using a QR code to open up a link to the web widget in their phone browsers is easier than having them type in the web URL directly. 

The widget can be configured in the settings online by going to Account > Settings > Add Yourself. Once you’ve tailored the options to fit your workflows, generate your unique QR code by using the link at the top of the Add Yourself settings page.

From there, you can print or download your QR code and add it to whatever signage you have for customers. Using the QR code feature can provide a touchless option instead of a sign-in kiosk, or simply save your staff time from needing to enter each customer’s information into the waitlist app.

Monday, March 16th, 2020 .

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.

Friday, April 10th, 2020 .

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.

Waitlist Me makes it simple to know the best place to seat your next customer. Our unique approach to section management blends psychology, data science, and cutting-edge design principles to create an intuitive tool that restaurant staff can pick up in a few minutes and enjoy using.  See how it works in this video:

 

The old way of scribbling on a laminated floor plan with a grease pen is messy and inefficient. It’s hard to estimate wait times and optimize table assignments without seeing key information like how long tables have been occupied.

Most apps that try to use data to improve on the grease pen approach make the mistake of clinging to the old-fashioned floor map diagram, which is deceptively complex. Why? Searching the whole map for the information you need is slow. Comparing different clusters of shapes, colors, and symbols is complicated. And interpreting a bunch of unordered data, like little progress bars, spread across all the tables, is very difficult. To name a few reasons.

All this extra complexity is unnecessary. Wait staff shouldn’t need a map to find tables after a couple days on the job. What they need is a fair, easy, intuitive way to know where to seat the next customer.

Look how much simpler it is when you group tables into a framework where the data can work for you, and you can read key information naturally like a book, in ordered lines, from top to bottom and left to right.

 

Tables are grouped by sections, and sorted by availability to make comparisons and decisions simple. The open tables for each section stand out in green on the left. Tables that have been occupied the longest show first, with the time displayed in the lower left. So it is easy to do a quick scan within a section to see how busy it is, as well as compare across sections.

 

Tapping on a table will bring up an action bar for adding customers to tables, clearing tables when done, changing table statuses, and more. This page has a good overview and video of the other table management features.

If you organize your tables and sections differently by day or time, Waitlist Me also gives you the flexibility to switch between different layouts. For example, you might divide tables into 6 sections for a busy weekend night, but only need 3 for a regular weekday night. By tapping on the Layouts link in the top right, you can choose from among your saved layouts and regroup your tables and sections on the fly.

 

Creating and editing sections layouts can be done in the app settings under Manage Assignments. There you can also choose to have different colors represent different sections or special tables within a section or layout as well.

 

With Waitlist Me’s table management features, your customers will get better service, with less waiting. Your employees will get their fair share of the work, and the tips. And you’ll have a more efficient restaurant, and a more profitable business.

Stop struggling with floor maps. Take control of your tables, and your business, with Waitlist Me.

Friday, August 26th, 2016 .

You know there are ways you could be using technology more in your restaurant business, but with millions of apps to choose from, how do you know where to start?  Well now there is a comprehensive new resource on the top free apps from the people at Orderly.  They definitely know their stuff when it comes to restaurant technology and have their own free Snap App for paperless invoicing that lets you capture, manage, and share invoices online.

The ultimate list of 50 Free Apps for Restaurants has a lot of great ideas for making managing your restaurant easier. These free apps will help you talk to your customers, organize your to-do list, hire the right people, speed up your processes, and market your business. You’ll find descriptions, features and benefits for your restaurant under each listing and links to download the apps for free.

Orderly_eBook_50-Apps_Cover

 

They are also divided up into categories to help you focus on specific areas of your business that you might want to improve.  The categories are:

  • Top 10 Must Have Apps (Waitlist Me is one of these!)
  • Best 12 Apps for Restaurant Organization & Productivity
  • 6 Apps for Phenomenal Customer Service
  • 9 Apps to make restaurant marketing 10X Easier
  • 6 Must-Have Apps for Recipe Planning & Organization
  • 7 Apps for No-Hassle Stock Photos, Images and Design

 

Check out the report.  You’ll be glad you did.