The hunt for must-have Valentine’s Day gifts is officially on. Whether you manage a big-name retailer or a small business storefront, a waitlist and reservation app is the 10-minute tech upgrade you need to keep your stress levels low and your customers’ shopping experience smooth and enjoyable this February 14^th.  Here’s how busy retail outlets are using  some of our app’s top features as Valentine’s Day approaches.

Text notifications

When you’re dealing with intimate purchases like lacy underthings or personal scents, sales associates and shoppers need privacy, not a looming line of other customers looking for assistance. That’s where a waitlist comes into play.

If individual service is a must, a waitlist is a boon no matter what products fill your shelves. Add text notification, and you’ve got a system that will bring calm to your store’s shopping and sales experience and create the one-on-one atmosphere you’re looking for. It’s an easy, unobtrusive way to let shoppers know when it’s their turn. And with Waitlist Me, they’re simple to set up and use, whether you need them once in a while for holiday rushes or sales, or 24/7 to keep up with your foot traffic.

Perfect for…lingerie stores, perfumeries, large retailers, big-ticket department stores, and other outlets where customers want to browse but also appreciate one-on-one assistance

Customer service

No matter the price tag, you want your customers to feel like friends, not another credit card number.

Say hello to two Waitlist Me features that’ll make your customers feel welcome and remembered: notes and wait time tracking. When you add shoppers to your waitlist, you can add notes, like what they’re wearing, what they look like, and what they’re shopping for. These details let sales associates greet them personally.

Tracking the times that you estimated you’d be ready to help a customer next to their actual waits helps you give accurate quotes.  It can be more frustrating for customers to not know how long the wait will be or have to wait longer than they were told.  Waitlist Me helps you overdeliver on their expectations.

Perfect for…boutiques, designer stores, luxury retailers, and other shops that rely on personalized service and a good rapport between sales associates and shoppers

People management

When you’ve got a mixed crowd of traditional rose-buyers and “I want something a little different” custom arrangements, balance is essential. Waitlist Me can help you achieve it.

The app allows you to add each shopper to a waitlist and note what sort of product the shopper is looking for. As a staff member specializing in each area becomes free, they can take on customers according to the type of bouquet they’re looking to give. Splitting the workload will maximize your resources—and prevent a bottleneck thanks to that one indecisive customer who just isn’t sure what he wants.

Perfect for…candy stores, flower shops, wine stores, and business whose customer base is often split between people who know exactly what they want and those who need more personal attention

Integrated appointments

Got the heart-shaped boxes stacked and ready to go? Filled your refrigerators with flowers by the dozen? Great! Now it’s time to focus on creating a stand-out shopping experience.

To nix a long line and take advantage of lulls, try taking phone orders in addition to walk-ins. Waitlist Me lets you manage advance orders (think of them as reservations with pick-up times) alongside walk-ins, which you can add to a waitlist when business picks up. The app keeps both neatly organized and accessible. That means you can focus on the people you’re serving, not on finding random bits of paper you scribbled an order on three days ago.

Perfect for…chocolatiers, flower shops, and businesses who offer call-in orders for quick pick-up in addition to walk-ins

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.

Due to significant fee increases from US mobile operators for sending text messages, we will no longer be including unlimited notifications in the subscription prices of US plans. Instead, we will include a bundle of notifications each month and the ability to pay separately for messages sent above this monthly allotment. These changes will affect all new signups from September 6, 2021 and apply to existing customers from Oct 4, 2021.

Our goals continue to be to offer the best value in waitlisting and scheduling services, while providing the flexibility for different businesses to send as many notifications as they need. It is important to note that the increases in mobile carrier fees affect all services sending text messages, and we believe that even with our latest plan updates that Waitlist Me will continue to be the price and value leader in its category.

The Premium plan includes 1,000 notifications per month, Pro includes 2,500 and Platinum 5,000. For businesses with heavier messaging needs, additional text and call notifications can be sent at a rate of $0.02 per notification, deducted from a prepaid balance. 

Monthly notifications reset when monthly subscription payments are processed. For users on annual plans, they reset every 30 days starting from the original payment date. Payments for adding to the prepaid balance can be made from the Account area of the Waitlist Me website, and there are settings to make it easy to auto-refresh the balance when it gets low.

Most businesses currently using our services would not hit these notification limits, and thus would not be affected by this update. Waitlist Me has several settings and options for sending notifications, so businesses can control when they don’t need to be sent. There are ways to monitor the usage of both the notifications that are included in the plan each month as well as the ones that are charged separately. The number of monthly text and call notifications sent can be viewed in the Settings area of the apps or in the Account area of the website. The website also shows a record of messages sent and the associated costs in the Messaging Costs area of the Billing History. 

We are happy to announce some exciting new ways waitlist technology is being used to help restaurant operators better serve their customers.  Through the use of the Waitlist Me API, these new solutions will be on display for the first time during the National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show. The app will be showcased during the show, May 16-19 in Chicago, through partnerships with BrightSign and Clover.

With BrightSign, the global market leader in digital signage players, restaurants can now display a public view of their waitlist on their digital signage so it is easy for customers to check their place in line without needing to bother the hostess. The flexibility of the BrightSign integration lets restaurants fully customize the look and feel of their waitlist so it looks like a natural extension of their menu board or other digital signage.

Restaurants operators can also tailor their customer-facing experience to their brand while using the Waitlist Me apps and service to easily manage their waitlist and page customers with text and call notifications.

It is exciting how well the BrightSign integration empowers restaurants to create displays with designs limited only by their imagination. We are very happy to be working with a company like BrightSign that shares our values of building scalable and reliable solutions that are easy to use and maintain.

Clover is another Waitlist Me partner that will have new things to show off at this year’s NRA Show.  The new Clover Mobile device, announced in April, lets businesses add customers to the waitlist right at the door as well as allowing status updates to be made from other parts of the store or restaurant.

Clover is at the forefront of creating better and more elegant POS hardware and solutions for businesses, and has a robust App Market for third-party developers. Because of the deeper integration Clover allows, Waitlist Me is able to offer more efficient tools for businesses and better experiences for their customers on the Clover platform.

Waitlist Me just recently announced its API earlier this year with Enplug as the first partner, and has several more projects in progress.

We want to help improve wait experiences everywhere, and integrations with companies like BrightSign and Clover highlight the power of the Waitlist Me platform.  By extending our waitlist management features and best-in-class text and phone notification infrastructure to work in other products, we can solve a wider set of needs together than with our service alone.

For more information on partnership opportunities, contact support@waitlist.me

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.