The week coronavirus hit the United States, grocery stores around the nation announced a similar plan: They were going to stagger shopping times to minimize the spread of COVID-19 to the sectors of the population thought to be most vulnerable, the elderly and the immune-compromised.

Most stores’ plans restricted an hour or two of morning grocery shopping time to these customers—and in doing so, introduced a new phrase to the lexicon: staggered waiting.

Wait. Isn’t all waiting staggered?

The short answer: nope.

The old-school, American-style queue amounts to a mosh pit of toe-tapping customers. During normal circumstances, that’s not a good thing. It’s frustrating for your guests and it often leads to lost business. During a pandemic, it’s even worse. You don’t want tons of people crowded together, huffing hot air all over each other!

Waitlists and reservation tools, like Waitlist Me, help businesses stagger waiting in a way that’s become quite familiar. For business owners, it helps even out the traffic flow, ensuring excellent customer service and zero employee overwhelm. For customers, it ensures a positive, efficient experience. Win-win!

Grocery stores are using the idea of staggered waiting a bit differently than most of us are used to, but it’s not actually a new idea. In fact, you’ve probably experienced it before.

How billion-dollar businesses use staggered waiting

Disneyland, the pinnacle of efficient queues, uses a staggered waiting system to provide an extra-special experience to its VIP guests, many of whom visit the parks through organizations like Make A Wish. It’s also offered as a premium, upgraded feature for ticketholders.

Another example of staggered waiting happens weekly at many Target stores across the country. The big box retailer has offered sensory-free shopping hours for customers who are sensitive to light, noise, and crowds for years. It’s been a huge success, especially for those on the autism spectrum.

Ways your business can use staggered waiting today

If you’re looking for new ways to control crowds or traffic patterns, staggered waiting is a concept you should explore. Not sure how that might look for your workplace? Creative ideas can come from different places, and you can look around at what others are doing.  Here are a few examples of how businesses can stagger demand to improve workflows and better cope with COVID-19.

Quick tip: Use Waitlist Me’s custom text notifications to share new waiting policies or instructions with your clients and customers.

– Veterinary office using morning hours for feline appointments and afternoon hours for canine appointments to keep small waiting areas calm.

– Restaurants offering special deals or menu items at different times of the day to encourage people to dine at off-peak hours.

– Tutoring center facilitating study material pick-up staggered by the first letter of students’ last names.

– Auto mechanic offering reverse delivery appointment windows to pick-up cars (and meet with customers) at home rather than at the shop.

– Local organic farmer providing fresh produce home delivery staggered by their customers’ area.

– Doctor’s office splitting patient appointments by background. Immune-compromised and elderly patients are diagnosed car-side, while other patients come inside the office.

– Family-owned pharmacy providing special hours for curbside delivery and in-store pick-up.

Waitlist Me Pro keeps the balance between your congenial, community atmosphere and top-notch customer service, by keeping things running smoothly and improving the waiting experience.   It is also designed to be intuitive and quick to use no matter how tech-savvy (or not) you and your clientele are.

Here are 4 customer-approved ways Waitlist Me Pro can help your barbershop:

Keep track of who’s busy (and who’s not)

What’s better than flipping through a paper calendar with scribbled-down availability? Honestly: just about anything. Waitlist Me Pro makes it easy to keep track of appointments for each barber at the same time as you manage your highly variable walk-in traffic.

The app allows you to see your upcoming appointments and the walk-in customers waiting for each barber as well as the customers they are currently serving and how long they have been with them. Waitlist Me’s intuitive visual layout shows the barbers who aren’t “in” as grayed out, while those who are busy are highlighted in red and show a time counter of how long they have been busy.  You can also see who the next person waiting for each barber is and what time they were told they would be served.

Run a more efficient business

Having a good time at work is a bonus. Enjoying your colleagues and your clientele? That’s the cherry on top of the sundae. But you are running a business—and that’s a reality you never forget.

Waitlist Me Pro keeps track of your resources, helping you focus a little more on the work you love and a little less on management. The app helps you keep track of many things: the amount of time your barbers spend on each client, how long customers wait before they hit the chair, who works the most and who works the least. You can run reports whenever you want and use the knowledge they impart to make decisions about staffing, expansion, business hours—anything and everything.

Customize your online waitlist and appointments tools

You know your business better than anyone. That’s why we built Waitlist Me Pro to give you as much freedom as possible over how you set up your waitlist and your appointments.

The pro-level app allows you to set your business hours as well as blackout days for appointments. Clients leave notes for you on their preferences or any accommodations they require. Have a regular client bringing a child in for his first cut? Prefer a certain style that might add on more time? All of that can be added as a note, allowing you to provide top-notch customer service, every single time.

Promote your loyalty program or current special offerings

Waitlist Me Pro offers the highest level of personalization. Whether you want to bring your brand colors and logo to the “add me” website widget or to a public waitlist you display online or in-store, Waitlist Me Pro lets you add custom HTML, change colors, and customize the wording.

If you offer a loyalty program, discounted products, or a new service, the public waitlist is a great way to let your clientele know. You can change the HTML to include graphics, videos, or plain text that keep your customers up-to-date on everything that’s going on in your shop.