The last thing you want to see is would-be customers walk in your shop, eager to take home a new piece of jewelry, and then they walk right back out because none of your sales associates is free to help them. That could be thousands of dollars in current and future purchases, trotting down the street to a competitor.

But what if you could capture walk-outs before they, well, walk out? With a reservation management app like Waitlist Me, you can.  Here’s what a waitlist app would allow you to do:

Treat customers like VIPS—even when you’re slammed

Forget about splitting your attention between the woman eyeing earrings in the case in front of you and the couple that just walked through the door. Greet people when they come in the door to find out what they need, so you add them to the waitlist and let them know you will be with them soon. This let’s new visitors know you care and helps your sales associates feel comfortable giving 100 percent of their attention to the client at hand.

Wow new clients with efficient communication and prompt service

What happens to the couple you can’t help right this second? You can text them the moment an associate is free (or schedule an appointment). When they walk through the door again, you’ll be prepared—maybe with a tray of engagement rings already on the counter—because Waitlist Me lets you add details to every customer, like what they’re currently shopping for.

Don’t let customers slip away during a sales rush

A lot of time and money goes into planning sales events, and they are a sure-fire way to bring in a larger crowd. It can be frustrating, though, to see people leaving because they don’t know when it might be their turn to get some help. For those days, Waitlist Me has an option to use an additional iPad as a self-check in station. It gives customers a simple way to get their spot in line, so they can relax as they browse through the store, or even step outside, without worrying about losing their turn.

Increase repeat customers

An exceptional experience is what transforms a one-time customer into a long-time customer. A waitlist app can help you eliminate the elements clients despise: feeling rushed as they browse, ignored when they come in, or forgotten as soon as they pay for their purchase.

We could wax poetic about Waitlist Me’s bells and whistles for hours (and we have!). But, honestly, one of our favorite bonuses that comes with implementing a waitlist and reservation app is getting rid of bad waiting room symptoms that begin to infect customers.

Let’s take a look at some of the annoying waiting maladies and behaviors that Waitlist Me helps do away with (and appreciate just how much better the customer experience is with a waitlist app). Here are 5 classic moves:

The toe-tapper

Who needs music wafting from a speaker when you could keep time to the beat of the toe-tapper’s sneaker on your tile floor? We joke, of course. We know you’re turning up the dial and pricing out carpet in order to drown this sucker out. Their tap-tap-tap won’t make tables turn over any faster, but it certainly can drive your host crazy (along with anyone else who’s waiting). The rhythmic nature of the toe tapping makes it more likely to spread to a variety of fidgeting activities around the room, creating a rather tense environment.

The eagle-eye

We’re certain some eagle-eyes honed their behavior early on as hall monitors. A training ground of tardy students prepared them well for their next mission: us. Now, they’ve set their sights on guests lingering too long over dessert and front-of-house staff dilly-dallying behind the hostess stand. Ever feel like you’re being…watched? We know exactly who to pin that on.

The disappearing-act

Some people have the gift of invisibility. They can disappear into a crowd, blend in seamlessly, fade into the background or jump right into the action like they were born there. This disappearing-act pulls a fast one, all right—right out your door without so much as a word of warning. Will you see them again? Sure, about 20 minutes after you call their name (and give their spot to the next person in line).

The slump-and-sigh

The burdens of the world have to rest on somebody’s, shoulders. Why not the slump-and-sigh? After all, that’s what it looks like once you give them their ETA. They take their seat with a sigh that bespeaks inner turmoil greater than 10 minutes ‘til “the doctor can see you now.” And if they have to stand? This one morphs into the hunch-and-groan. Sigh.

The watch-watcher

Need to know the time? There’s always someone in your waiting room you can ask, although we’re not entirely sure you’d want to. Whether they’re old-school with a wrist watch, analog with a wall clock, or high-tech with the latest iPhone, the watch-watcher tracks their own countdown, thankyouverymuch. And if your wait-time guesstimate is off by so much as a minute, well, you can expect to hear about it. This another of the more infectious behaviors. If you have a diligent watch-watcher in the group, you’ll definitely see an uptick in the unconscious time checking behaviors from others in the room.

The solution

You can’t always get rid of waiting, but Waitlist Me helps you make the wait experience better by giving guests more visibility into the wait process and the flexibility to leave the waiting room and be notified with a text when you are ready for them.

Let the toe-tapper and eagle-eye work off some of their nervous energy by walking around outside while they wait. Help the disappearing-act know the right time to be back with a well-timed text message. Take some of the worries of endless or unpredictable waits off the slump-and-sighs shoulders. And show the watch-watcher you care by using real time wait tracking to give better estimates and deliver on the promised wait times.

If you find that you, your staff, or your customers are more exhausted or more stressed out than usual, you’re not alone. In fact, these feelings are so common right now that the American Psychoanalytic Association has a name for it: PTSE, or Pandemic Trauma and Stress Experience.

APsaA’s COVID-19 advisory team has put together a long list of stressors and fears that those experiencing PTSE generally struggle with. It includes everything from “increased withdrawal, isolation, and fear of others as a source of infection” to “increased altruism, including worry about others.”

And you know what? All the points on this list of fears has the power to impact small businesses like yours.

Read on for four ways you can help customers have less stress when they visit.

Communicate safety precautions clearly

Proactively inform your guests about the precautions you’re taking to minimize the spread of the virus.

Post signs on your door, require hosts and servers to introduce them early in a guest’s visit, and include it on other forms of communication, from menus to social media profiles and posts. These precautions can protect not just your customers, but you and your employees as well.

Eliminate waiting area anxiety

Hanging out in a restaurant lobby wasn’t fun pre-COVID. During a pandemic, being that close to strangers for a long period of time is the stuff that panic attacks are made of.

Luckily, WaitList Me empowers customers to wait where they feel safest—outside in the fresh air, window shopping around the block, or hanging out in the car. Thanks to our text notifications feature, you can reach them wherever they are to let them know when they’ve hit the front of the line.

Cut unnecessary interactions

In this hand sanitizer-soaked world we now live in, many customers are concerned about touching items they never would have thought twice about a year ago. Everything from door handles to menus are suspect.

Eliminating these stressors requires a little bit of ingenuity. Wherever possible, install items like foot-pulls to enable guests to access areas without using their hands.

You can also use QR codes for menus and other ways. Post a QR code of the link to your Waitlist Me web widget and let customers join the list before they step foot in your restaurant, further minimizing lines and crowds.

Socially distance eating areas

For stressed-out customers, seeing a tightly packed dining area is enough to make them turn tail and leave—and may think twice before returning in the future.

You may want to reevaluate your restaurant’s table layout. Waitlist Me Platinum’s floorplan view and table management features are handy for optimizing your dining spaces and knowing where to seat the next customer to keep things flowing smoothly. 

One more thing: While community tables may have been the restaurant trend du jour, pre-COVID, now is not the time to bring them back. In fact, even when herd immunity has been reached, it might take awhile for diners to be psychologically comfortable enough to eat elbow-to-elbow with strangers again. 

The holidays are coming up. You know what that means: a rush of customers eager to snap up the next big tech toy.  If you can’t manage the wait times effectively, though, your customers are guaranteed to be toe-tapping their way around your displays as they wait for the next available associate. Or worse, they may just head to another store.

Waitlist Me Pro can help you turn your customers’ visit to your store into an experience they’ll be more satisfied with. Think: more referral business, glowing Google reviews, and kudos from corporate. Read on for ways our pro-level app will help you do business better.

Schedule your staff more efficiently

Prepare for the storm by tracking your team in real time and accessing reports on staffers’ past performance.

Waitlist Me Pro’s hallmark feature is resource management and reporting. The app lets you assign your associates to different areas of the store (or to different tasks), track how much time they spend with each customer, and see who is working the most and who is working the least. With this data in hand, you’re better prepared to make decisions about serving customers as things get busy.

Add promotions to your public waitlist

Running a special on certain devices or services? Sponsoring an old phone holiday drive? Recycling batteries or chargers? Let your customers know when they check in, thanks to Waitlist Me Pro’s customizable public waitlist.

This pro-level feature lets you add whatever HTML you want to the waitlist. You could include graphics, coupon codes, videos, or plain text, in addition to changing the page’s colors, adding your logo, and swapping out the wording to bring your brand voice to the app’s functionality.

Let customers add themselves to your waitlist, no matter where they are

With Waitlist Me Pro, customers no longer have to start their waiting from your store. They can use the web widget—which Pro allows you to customize more—to add themselves to your waitlist from wherever they are. It’s web and mobile friendly, which means they can access it from home or on the go.

Combine the add-me remote feature with our public waitlist and text notifications, and you’ve got the ideal customer experience. Waitlist Me Pro lets your customers live their lives, run their errands, and make their appointments—and they’ll never worry about losing their place in line.

Quote more accurate wait times

There is nothing worse than waiting around twice as long as the time initially quoted. The app has always helped store associates predict more accurate ETAs. But with Waitlist Me Pro, you can take making better estimates to the next level.

By being able to see in real-time which of your staffers are busy and which are available as well as how much time they’ve spent with each customer and when, on average, they should finish up. With Pro, you have more data at your fingertips to make smarter decisions faster.

Waitlist Me makes it simple to track table availability and server assignments. There are a couple options that can be customized to your business needs and workflows. 

If you manage your tables by section, the first thing you’d want to do is visit this page to learn more about setting up your sections and layouts. If your business isn’t a restaurant, you can also use these same features to group your staff, rooms, or other resources visually in the Grid view.

Our Pro level service provides a very simple way to know what server is assigned to what section by using the Assignment Notes feature. Simply tap on the “Notes” link to view a list of sections and text form fields where you can enter server names or other notes for each section. It is easy to see high level information about each section and make changes all at once.

With our Platinum level service, you can also set up an additional floorplan view, and be able to position these same notes where you’d like in the floorplan view.

Also with Platinum you also have the option to assign servers individually to tables and track the activity by server rather than section. This is especially useful if you don’t use sections and use a system of assigning tables based on server turns or server activity. Or if you have servers assigned to sections, but need to have some floaters to help out where needed or other cross section activity, you can combine the section notes with individual server assignments to keep track of everything.

To set up individual servers, tap on the gear icon in the Waitlist Me app to go to the Settings and then go to Manage Assignments > Servers. Here you can enter the names of your servers. Select Status on the upper right of this menu if you want to add colors for the servers. Using different colors can make it easier to see where your different servers are assigned. Or maybe you want all your patio servers coded as green to make it easier to distinguish them from the indoor servers. 

After a table has been seated, select the table to access the footer bar. Here you will see a Server button, which brings up a menu of active servers. Choose a name to assign that server. You can sort by alphabetical order, the number of tables or seats each has had, or the amount of time since the last table was sat for each employee. 

Also, in the upper right of this server window is a Status option. The Server Status area lets you mark the servers who aren’t working today as inactive, and to change status colors if needed. 

If you haven’t yet named your tables, you can do that in the settings under Assignments. For the Pro features, you can find helpful information on navigating the grid view here. For the Platinum features, the video on this page will show you how to place your tables in your floorplan.