These are challenging times with the spreading of the coronavirus. Many businesses are being forced to close their doors or to change the ways they do business to continue serving people.

Asking customers and patients to wait in their cars is gaining popularity as a better alternative than waiting inside businesses. Curbside service has taken on a whole new significance across multiple industries.

Waitlist Me makes it easy to track who is next in line to be served and then press a button to send a text notification when you are ready for them, so people can wait in their cars until it is their turn. There are also options for people to add themselves to the waitlist without even having to leave their car.

Here are some of the industries using Waitlist Me to provide better wait experiences in new ways:

Healthcare Facilities – Medical offices, urgent care centers, dental offices, eyecare centers, and hospitals are some examples where patients often wait in confined areas and may be afraid of getting sick from others. Allowing them to wait outside or in their cars helps to limit cross-infections for patients and healthcare workers.

Dispensaries – As this Forbes article aptly points out, “It should go without saying that medical cannabis patients are the most vulnerable cannabis consumers, and the most at risk of serious complications from Covid-19.” Social distancing strategies like curbside pickup can help reduce the risk to these patients. Even for non-patients, waiting in the car can be better for limiting the number of people in the store at a time or avoiding the need to go into the store at all.

Veterinary and Animal Services – With people spending more time at home and the elevated stress-levels caused by the crisis, pets are going to be an even bigger focus than ever. Vet clinics, animal shelters, and humane centers can keep visitors and staff safer by not having too many customers waiting inside their businesses.

Restaurants – For those restaurants that don’t have to close altogether, shifting to delivery and curbside pick-ups so customers don’t have to leave their cars can be a way to continue serving their clients.

Blood Donation – With people more reluctant to leave their houses, blood supplies have declined. Making it easier to schedule an appointment and wait outside can help encourage more people it is safe to donate blood.

Supply Stores – While many retail stores are closing, some types of supply stores will be important for builders, plumbers, electricians, mechanics and others that perform important home and automotive services. These stores can reduce crowds and offer more touchless systems for picking up supplies.

Grocery Stores – People will continue to need groceries and safe ways to shop. Some grocery stores are already moving towards limiting the number of people in the store at any given time to keep aisles clearer. When a customers finish shopping, the next customers are texted to invite them inside.

People don’t like crowded wait areas, even in the best of times. These days social distancing requires an even higher standard of avoiding crowds, and letting customers and patients wait in their cars can be a valuable option for businesses to provide.

What do patients complain about most? It’s not bedside manner or needles or paperwork, it’s the waiting room. If you want a glowing review on HealthGrades or Vitals, or you’re looking to boost your Yelp or Google stats, there’s one thing you can do today—right now—to make that happen: Improve your customer service.

Waitlist Me is a waitlist and reservation management app that can help you do that in a snap. Can’t envision it in your office? Here’s what it’s helping other healthcare businesses across the medical industry achieve:

Manages fluctuating crowds and periods of high volume

Perfect for urgent care centers and emergency rooms

When you cater to patients who need help now, telling them they have to wait is just about the worst thing you can do. The next best thing, though, is making their wait easier, no matter how full the waiting room is. Waitlist Me does exactly that. Our public waitlist feature lets patients check their real-time ETA from the comfort of their chairs, a bench outside, or wherever it is they feel best. Best of all: You can customize the information displayed on it, protecting your patients’ personal information while still cutting down on those painful walks to the front desk to ask when it’ll finally be their turn.

Makes walk-in visits possible alongside scheduled appointments

Perfect for dental offices, doctor’s practices, and clinics

Watching a receptionist click through a series of complicated screens takes eons when you’re the guy with a toothache standing on the other side of the counter. With Waitlist Me, administrative staff don’t have to hem and haw about squeezing in an emergency walk-in, or waffle over exactly how long it’ll take to get him in front of the doc. Waitlist Me’s intuitive interface is learnable in minutes and readable in seconds. With just a glance, you can estimate the wait, check him in, and reassure him that you’ve got everything under control.

Allows customers to book facetime with medical experts (and easily wait for prescriptions)

Perfect for drugstore and hospital pharmacies

Not every pharmacy customer needs a Q&A to accompany their prescription. For the ones who do have questions about the medications they’re prescribed—or any they’re considering taking over-the-counter—a waitlist app can make scheduling a conversation with a busy professional quick and easy. Waitlist Me can be used to manage customers waiting for prescriptions to be filled and for consultations. The color-coded interface lets you easily see and sort who is waiting for what and instant text notification allows you to call them over when it’s their turn, no matter where they are in the building. Looking at magazines? Stretching their legs? Not a problem!

Moves patients through check-in, waiting, and procedures efficiently

Perfect for donation centers, blood drives, and testing centers

Plasma donation? Drug test? Routine bloodwork? These sorts of visits are ones that people schedule before a work shift or in a free hour between meetings. Getting them in and out of your office is the order of the day, and Waitlist Me makes it easy for everyone. The app’s simple visual interface makes registration quick and painless for every person on your staff, whether they’re a long-time volunteer or a receptionist-in-training. Once a patient is checked in, they’ll receive an automatic text confirmation with a link to a public waitlist, which allows them to see where they are in line—and take care of whatever business they have before you’re ready for them.

Want to improve your queue? Whether you’re looking to shorten lines or lose fewer customers, you need the science behind waiting to be on your side.

Luckily, there’s an expert for that.

His name is Richard Larson, although he also goes by “Dr. Queue.” Larson is recognized world-wide for his research on queuing theory—and before you ask, yes, that’s a real thing. He’s one of the handful of scientists who look forward to the hour-long lines as amusement parks rather than the rides themselves.

Dr. Queue wiles away wait times by puzzling over what makes waiters content to queue. Larson explores what kinds of waiting environments keep customers happiest, what systems best manage traffic flow, and what causes queuers to bail rather than wait out a long line.

We designed Waitlist Me with queue theory in mind. Take a look at how you can use our app alongside the psychology of waiting to make your customers happier.

Distractions make waits appear shorter

You know the old saying, “a watched pot never boils”? It’s not quite true. The pot always boils; it just seems like it takes longer when you’re staring at it. The same can be said for any sort of wait. It’s why doctor’s offices invest in magazines and restaurants let you hang out at the bar.

Whether you manage an eatery, a store, an office, or a gym, Waitlist Me lets you notify customers when they reach the front of the line. Our text notification feature sets your queuers free, allowing them to find their own distractions until you’re ready for them.

Anticipation improves customer satisfaction

Is the food at a four-star restaurant better than the food at a neighborhood pub? Maybe. But built in to that four-star restaurant’s rating is the anticipation. Whether they’ve been awaiting their reservation or reading review after review, customers are already primed to enjoy their dining experience.

With our public waitlist feature, Waitlist Me lets you keep your diners salivating even if the bread basket is 20 minutes out of reach. You can sync the public waitlist to a TV in your waiting area and include enticing photos and videos along with daily specials.

Managing wait-time expectations leads to happier guests

Calling the cable company has gotten less painful over the last few years, yet we dread doing it. Why? Because we still remember the interminable minutes of hold music with no end in sight. The waits might still be long, but they’re much less tedious now because the companies let you know how many people are in line ahead of you.

Guests want to see a finish line no matter where or when they’re waiting. Waitlist Me’s wait time estimates and comparisons of actual and quote times help hosts and receptionists quote accurate wait times based on real-world data. And, after customers are added to the waitlist, they can check their place in line right from their smartphone.

Social fairness limits anxiety and stress among queuers

The first to arrive in line should be the first served—that’s social fairness. While it’s nice in principle, it doesn’t always make sense for businesses. Sometimes, a two-top that just walked in the door of a restaurant can be seated before a party of four that’s been waiting for 30 minutes.

Waitlist Me offer the appearance of social fairness that guests are looking for. Because our features free your customers from your waiting area, no one’s the wiser about which guest has been queuing the longest.

For customers who can’t tell a carburetor from a catalytic converter, it’s customer service that makes an automotive retailer or service business shine. Your under-the-hood expertise lets them trust you. But the way you treat the folks walking through your door? That’s what’s gonna keep them coming back when they’re shopping for a new vehicle, replacing a flat tire, or detailing out their investment.

Waitlist Me is an app that ensures your customers are treated like VIPs every time they’re in your waiting room. Here’s how it could help your business get a jump on your competition.

Keep customers on your lot

Car shoppers want to go from browsing to trying to buying on their time, not yours. Watching later arrivals jump the line? That’s a definite no-no—and so is tapping their toes on the sidewalk while they wonder when it’ll finally be their turn. Waitlist Me keeps things more orderly (no skipping!). Add shoppers to it when they first arrive to show them you care, and let them browse your inventory while they wait for the next available sales associate.

Bonus! When you use Waitlist Me, you can allow your customers to add themselves to your list from wherever they are. That means they put their name on the waitlist while they’re in transit—and you’ll be ready to help them the minute they pull up to your curb.

Let customers escape your waiting room

It doesn’t matter if they’re waiting for the finance department or for a patched tire: Nobody likes to hang out in a waiting room. Waitlist Me’s text notification feature sets your customers free. The app allows you to send them a quick text when it’s their turn. If they’re farther away than the water cooler, it lets them notify you that they’re on their way.

Bonus! Drop-offs keep you busy without packing your waiting room. Waitlist Me makes drop-offs better for everyone, thanks to our public waitlist feature. Customers can check their place in line to get a better idea of how much longer the wait will be, so they don’t have to keep asking about it.

Easily manage appointments and walk-ins

Most systems let you schedule appointments or walk-ins. Waitlist Me lets you do both. The app’s simple visual interface lets you scan your day’s bookings and quickly figure out where you can squeeze in drop-in customers. You can even color code different types of appointments—say, an oil change or a detail—to help you better manage your resources.

Bonus! Your employees should spend time working, not fumbling through difficult computer programs or messy appointment books. We designed Waitlist Me with ease in mind, making it a cinch to train new staff members and use every single day.

WiggleWorks kids is a popular destination for children and their families, being the only indoor playground that caters strictly to kids who are 48-inches tall or less. Weekends can be very busy, and Waitlist Me helps WiggleWorks kids reduce wait times, increase the number of kids they serve, and make parents happier.

WiggleWorks kids provides soft, moveable, interactive play equipment for children at its two Washington State locations, one each in the towns of Bellevue and Puyallop. The equipment is used to help children build motor skills and the unstructured play area gives them an opportunity for social interaction with children their own age.

“We limit the number of children who can play at one time and we are first come, first serve. There was no way for someone to get on the waiting list unless they called in or came into the store,” said Bellevue store manager, Kristen Deskin. “We had a lot of complaints about our wait list system because there were opportunities for a lot of user error and it often got confusing.”

That confusion was compounded by the fact that employees were responsible for taking down names and phone numbers, which were sometimes misprinted or missing key letters or numbers. Troubled by the many customer complaints, Deskin and her team looked for a better way to manage their waitlist. In 2013, they turned to WaitList Me.

“When we launched Waitlist Me we immediately felt more in control of our waitlist and felt like we had more opportunities to serve the public. This is because we could accommodate the number of people wanting to get on the list,” Deskin said. “It also has freed up an employee because they are no longer tied to taking names.”

Deskin likes how WaitList Me is easy to use and provides a simple way to keep track of store waitlists and whether customers walk in or add their name from home through the WiggleWorks kids website.  Since making the switch, customers have been happier and are more excited to come into the locations.

“We have had wait times of up to two hours in the past and WaitList Me has reduced those times so no one waits now for more than 45 minutes to an hour,” Deskin said. “I also use it to see and track how many children are coming back into play after waiting compared to how many names we are having to delete. That was one big improvement I was able to track that enabled me to make some good business decisions with the owner.”

– By Valerie Killifer, special to WaitList Me