Wednesday, October 16th, 2019 .

The eye-popping, groan-inducing truth is that Americans spend 37 billion hours waiting in line every single year. And while we can get on board with some of these waits, most of them aren’t worth it. On any given day in any given place, the average person is wasting their time waiting. And here at Waitlist Me HQ, that’s not something we believe in.

Not sure if your wait is worth it? We’re breaking down the types of situations that warrant a wait and the ones that don’t to ensure that you, dear reader, get the most out of your most valuable commodity: time. Scroll down for four worth-it waits (and four more that should make you walk).

Eating out

Getting your grub on? Don’t be so quick to join the line.

Wait for…pop-up restaurants. If you have your eye on an hour-long wait, make sure that you’re waiting for something special, like a one-night-only dining concept or a chef collaboration that the whole town will be buzzing about over tomorrow’s breakfast.

Don’t wait for…a happy hour table. Don’t let trendy hot-spots trick you into queueing for a table when they’re not offering anything better than the less-busy bar down the block. Happy hour specials tend to feature common offerings that appeal to the masses rather than house specialties, anyway.

Playing ball

Trust us: There’s no need to sweat a long line 24/7.

Wait for…playoff tickets. Supporting your favorite teams is an investment that lasts longer that two halves, four quarters, or nine innings. When you show up en masse for a sport you love, it keeps the teams you enjoy cheering for hanging around from season to season—and that’s a win in our book.

Don’t wait for…gym equipment. A well-managed gym shouldn’t include a line of toe-tappers waiting to snag their 40 minutes on a treadmill. If your favorite workout spot refuses to evolve in order to keep up with demand, consider taking your membership dollars elsewhere.

Yukking it up

Nothing kills a good time quite like a queue.

Wait for…a big-time live show like SNL. Did you know people regularly camp out on New York City sidewalks for 12-plus hours at a time to see a taping of Saturday Night Live? For die-hard fans, it’s a worthwhile experience that comes with stories, new friends, and sometimes even munchies delivered by the host of the week.

Don’t wait for…trivia night seats. Waiting is stressful—that’s a fact. But your limited time out with your friends shouldn’t be a nail-biter! With British pub-style trivia exploding in popularity across the U.S., there’s no reason to queue for a table. Find another venue and discover a new favorite!

Finding a deal

Shop ‘til you drop? Fabulous. Wait ‘til late? Not so much.

Wait for…a sample sale. Whether you’re a bride-to-be or a bargain-hunting fashionista, you know that there are sales and then there are sales. Black Friday might make you feel more “eh” than “yay,” but if a favorite store or brand is having their once-a-year blow-out, go ahead and queue your heart out.

Don’t wait for…a Saturday afternoon shopping trip. A casual trip to the mall shouldn’t make you want to pull your hair out in frustration or grumble about how slow other shoppers are being in the dressing rooms. When it comes to brick-and-mortar stores that need your business to keep the lights on, stellar service should be offered alongside the merchandise.

Of course, businesses can improve the wait experience by using Waitlist Me. So if you find yourself stuck waiting somewhere, you can always mention that to them!    

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016 .

Building on the set of resource management features we rolled out a couple months ago, we have added more flexibility for creating and tracking custom resource statuses. These statuses can be used to visually highlight different stages of your occupied resources in different colors to help make assignment decisions faster and easier.

Here is a new video on resource management, including the new custom statuses:

 

 

For example, say you are managing restaurant tables and using Waitlist Me to view what tables are available or occupied. You can sort tables by the times they have been occupied for a better sense of which ones will become available first. Now with custom statuses you could improve on those estimates even more by changing the states of tables that are waiting for their bill or being cleaned. Marking tables with customers waiting for their checks as “billing” can give your bus boys a heads up on which tables would need cleaning soon. Similarly, you can change the status of tables to “cleaning” when they are being cleared and prepped. Using more detailed statuses can help your staff at the front of the house know what tables will be available soon, which means they can quote better wait time estimates and seat customers faster. This means more revenue for the restaurant through more table turns and improved customer satisfaction.

This is just one example of how it might work in a restaurant, but the flexibility of the naming and usage of statuses means they can be tailored to different processes in different businesses.

To change a status in Waitlist Me, all you have to do is press on the resource and an action bar will appear at the bottom of the screen. This area shows information on customers currently occupying and waiting for the resource, and has actions for moving and clearing customers. Pressing on the status on the left will bring up a list of statuses, and selecting one will change the status and color of the resource. In the list view, just tap on the status color to change it.

status - full view

 

Note that when you choose a custom status you can see both the total time a resource has been occupied as well as the time spent in the current status, which is shown in parenthesis. This makes it easy to see total visit times and times in specific statuses at a glance, so you can tell if a certain stage is causing more delays than others and how that might be affecting total wait times.

Accompanying the custom statuses are a couple of new sorting options in the Grid view, where you can view your resources grouped by Status. Select “Status the ABC” to have all the statuses grouped together and then ordered alphabetically by the resource name or “Status then Time” to have them ordered by the length of time they have been in that particular status.

To customize your statuses, go to your Settings and then press on “Manage Resources” and then again on the “Statuses” in the upper right. In addition to the default “available” (green) and “occupied” (red) statuses, you can add four of your own statuses. Just add the names and move the sliders on the right to turn them on or off. Statuses will show alphabetically in the options when you select them, so you can set the naming accordingly. The green and red statuses for available and occupied resources are always required, and custom statuses are treated as states of an occupied resource.

status - settings

 

Monday, January 29th, 2018 .

You don’t have to act like a drill sergeant to bring a touch more productivity to your 9-to-5 life. Whether you’re a manager, a department director, an executive, or a small business owner, you get more done when you aren’t waiting on things holding you up.

Waitlists aren’t just for restaurants. People waste a lot of time waiting around in business environments, even if they aren’t standing in lines. Here are four ways you can put a waitlist app to work in an office setting:

Run a help desk more efficiently

Forget about dragging equipment to a different floor or wondering if the IT guy has read your email yet. A waitlist keeps everyone in the loop and no one standing in line, laptop in hand. Your tech support can send text alerts to employees when it’s their turn, cutting down on dead time spent twiddling their thumbs.

Bonus! Waitlist Me Pro offers analytics that let you check up on different data points, like which employee is spending how much time taking care of which problem. You’ll be able to track your service times—and see if you need to adjust the schedule or size of your team, based on the hours your crew is currently clocking.

Answer “Do you have a minute?” questions

Administrators, HR, designers, unofficial office gurus—there are all sorts of people who field questions from colleagues 24/7. A waitlist gives them an easy way to help out with information requests without derailing projects and meetings.

Bonus! Our public waitlist feature lets staffers check in to see where they are in line, which means no more passive aggressive follow-up emails, check-in calls asking if you’re free in five, or awkward hovering outside your office door. Phew!

Manage office hours with managers, teams, or departments

An open-door policy is great for your office culture but not so hot for productivity. A better choice: consistent office hours. Employees will know when it’s their turn to poke their heads in for advice or project input. Got a line growing outside your office? Waitlist Me can help you wrangle it. Let employees add themselves and then chill at their desks ‘til it’s their turn, without worrying about missing their chance to meet.

Bonus! Waitlist Me works on the web as well as iOS and Android devices. That means it can go wherever you do. Use it in your office on a desktop computer, from a coffeeshop, or wherever else your job takes you.

Oversee on-site employee services and benefits

Everyone loves a perk, whether it’s on on-site yoga studio or food trucks in the parking lot every Wednesday. But sometimes, those perks come with wait times that keep employees at bay. Keep your employees happy—and enjoying the benefits that are part of their compensation package—by employing a waitlist that lets everyone have a go at the good stuff. Waitlist Me lets staffers add themselves to a list from wherever they are, whether they’re at home, on the train, or walking in from the parking deck, making it even easier for them to use the services you offer.

Bonus! With Waitlist Me, a 5-minute wait really is a 5-minute wait. Our app offers wait time estimates based on historical averages, and seeing estimated times next to actuals helps people improve their quote estimates. It’s just one more way we’re helping you and your employees use time wisely.

 

Friday, September 28th, 2018 .

Customer experience is one very important thing you can’t afford to skimp on. That five-star review you’re looking for starts as soon as guests walk through your front door.

The good news: Customer experience is the easiest thing for restaurants to fix. Still, scads of otherwise-awesome spots lose stars before diners take their seats!

Read on to find out where they’re going wrong—and one so-easy-we-can’t-believe-not-everyone-is-using-it way to wow guests, garner top-notch reviews, and keep customers coming back for more.

5 signs your waiting area is turning off your diners

Could your waitlist use an upgrade? If your restaurant is facing any of these five dining experience problems, it’s time to revamp the way your customers wait.

It’s cramped. If it’s tough to squeeze in a party of four between your entry way and your hostess stand, you’re setting your guests up for discomfort right off the bat. The longer they stand there—and make way for new arrivals and passing busboys—the less they’ll enjoy their dining experience.

It’s crowded. Packing guests in like sardines sounds great in theory, but it’s really a disaster waiting to happen. When hungry guests walk in and see a crowd ahead of them, they’re liable to walk right back out—and go to the restaurant across the street.

It’s noisy. A little chatter and some mood music? Totally fine. Guests straining to hear their names being called? Absolutely not. No one should have to miss out on conversation with their tablemates because they’re afraid of losing their spot in line.

It’s dull or dingy. Thanks to smartphones and Instagram feeds, diners arrive at your door with spotty attention spans and high expectations. There’s lots of leeway between busting your budget and giving them a chance to be unimpressed from the get-go.

It’s nonexistent. We’re all for small spots maximizing their floor space. A hole-in-the-wall hideaway is a fantastic find…until we have to park ourselves behind another diner’s chair because there isn’t room to wait anywhere else. Awkward.

The easy fix for your waiting area

You don’t have to invest in fancy chairs or a swanky patio or even a fresh coat of paint. All you need is a  waitlist app called Waitlist Me.

Waitlist Me allows you to set your diners free. Thanks to optional text message alerts and a waiting list with estimated wait times that they can check on their smartphones, they don’t have to worry about missing out. These simple features mean…

– Guests can wander around the area, eliminating the need to accommodate and entertain them inside your restaurant

– Your visible queue will be shorter and more attractive to newcomers

– Diners can enjoy quality time with friends and family without worrying that they’ll miss their name being called

– Your host will be free to provide excellent service because they won’t need to keep answering “how much longer?” questions (or avoid frustrated glares)

 

The app is simple to learn and flexible to use. Making it work for your dining space is easy, and training your front of house staff to use it takes mere minutes. It works on most tablets, mobile devices, or a desktop computer, and you can sync it to multiple devices at once so that multiple staff can use it at the same time. The more you use Waitlist Me, the better you’ll be at giving accurate wait times, which reduces walkaways and improves the customer experience as well as the bottom line.

Thursday, May 10th, 2018 .

Mother’s Day is coming up this weekend in the US, so it is a great time for restaurants to use Waitlist Me to manage the surge in families hoping to treat mom to a special meal.  With the recent launch of Waitlist Me in over 60 countries, it is now being used for different holidays at different times.

Interestingly, over 150 countries that celebrate Mother’s Day and the holiday has the deepest roots in the UK, where it is called Mothering Sunday.  Since the 1500s, young apprentices and domestics would walk home on Mothering Sunday, carrying special cakes and picking wildflowers for their mums before going to church.  This year people in the UK already celebrated Mothering Sunday on March 11, and here are some of the ways Waitlist Me is helping businesses in the UK.

Let patrons relax rather than queue

Brits may take pride in their queueing capabilities, but that doesn’t mean they enjoy waiting in queues, especially on holiday outings. Waitlist Me takes the queue out of the equation. Whether customers make a reservation or walk in on the big day, they can drop their name at your hostess stand and get back to enjoying time with their loved ones without fretting about losing their place.

Bonus! One of Waitlist Me’s core features is the public queue list, which lets your guests see for themselves exactly where they are in the queue and how much more time they have kill before it’s brunch time. You can set it up to display on a monitor or telly in your vestibule.

Easily accommodate walk-ins and reservations

Every holiday has its planners and its skivers. Waitlist Me makes it easy to welcome everyone without any fuss or frustration. The app integrates a standard queue with made-in-advance reservations, all on the same screen. There’s no need to panic over squeezing somebody in, and your guests will never see your hosts sweat. Plus you can toss your grease pens, sticky notes, and messy reservation books in the bin. Ta, clutter!

Bonus! Waitlist Me is all about making work easy for you and your staff. The app’s interface was designed to be intuitive and user-friendly. That makes training time minimal for your hosts and helps them stay calm and professional during busy periods.

Set your queuers free

If your restaurant is in an area stuffed with shops or historic landmarks, giving customers the option to wander while they wait is a happy surprise. In the UK, Waitlist Me text notifications are completely optional. It’s a feature that lets you—or your guests—decide when to use it. An example: When you add a customer to your queue, you can let them know they can wait in your lobby or you can text them when their table is ready if they’d prefer to walk around.

Bonus! International text notifications are offered as a prepaid, pay-as-you-go system. Sending a text is as easy as tapping a button on the app, but it’s always your choice to send. Or not—whatever works best for your restaurant.

Impress customers with accurate wait estimates

Sure, your guests might not tell you they’re annoyed by a long queue or a poorly judged queue time, but one bad experience waiting for their turn can keep them from coming back. Waitlist Me shows average wait stats and real time waits next to quoted times, so it is easy for your staff to give more accurate estimates and make guests happier.

Bonus! Waitlist Me’s public waitlist feature makes it easy for guests to check their place in line from their phone, so they worry less about how much longer they must wait.  It also cuts down on repeated questions to your hostess on the remaining wait.

Remember special requests

Birthdays or anniversaries? Food allergies? A highchair? Wheelchair accommodation? A preference for patio seating? Waitlist Me offers a simple Notes feature to help you, your hosts, and your servers keep track of whatever it is your customers want and need to make their meals enjoyable. Input these details when they walk through your door, and you’re set.

Bonus! Waitlist Me offers real-time sync across multiple iOS, Android, and web-enabled devices. That means everyone on your front-of-house staff and your management team can be clued in 24/7.