True or false: Customers hate waiting.

Answer: False.

No, really: Customers don’t hate waiting. At amusement parks, they’ll wait all day. What customers hate is where they do all the waiting. Stick them in a bland doctor’s office waiting room and they’ll get twitchy in 2 minutes flat. Give them an area to explore, a space that’s an experience in itself? Well, then the wait becomes part of the ride. And you don’t have to run a theme park to tap into that kind of magic.

Why your waiting room is terrible

Most queueing areas are like purgatory. They’re awkward spots your customers dread sitting around in while they await the main event. They’re a no man’s land. They don’t look or feel particularly like your business, and they don’t look or feel like any place your customer wants to spend time in.

That’s not good for your bottom line. The moment your guests begin feeling uncomfortable or unhappy is the exact time you start losing money. They become frustrated, and they take that frustration out on you and your staff. Sometimes, they walk out the door without giving you the chance to win them over.

Why?

Because whether you intend to or not, a bland, uncomfortable waiting area signals that your business doesn’t prioritize the experience of your customers. The waiting room is the first chance you have to wow them. And right now, you’re squandering it.

How to make your first impression a good one

Forget about hiring an interior designer and picking new paint colors. We have a different change in mind, and it doesn’t have to cost you a penny.

Waitlist Me is an app that handles waitlists and reservations for all sorts of different businesses, including restaurants, retail stores, and doctors’ offices.

How can a waitlist app transform your waiting area, win over customers, and help you make more money? Easy: by improving the first interaction they have with your business and making the time they spend waiting better.

Here’s how Waitlist Me changes your customers’ waiting experience for the better:

Wait from anywhere

Your customers are busy. With Waitlist Me’s same-day reservations feature and add-yourself web widget, they can jump on line without wasting time.

Set them free

Untether your guests from your hostess stand or check-in desk thanks to our text notifications feature. It lets them window shop or run errands without losing their place it line.

Make your business more attractive

Fewer customers standing around in your waiting area means fewer walk-outs due to long, visible lines and a less cramped, more inviting space for those who do prefer to wait inside.

More flexibility

Running behind schedule is stressful enough. With our simple response feature, guests don’t have to worry about missing their spot. When you notify them by text, they can respond and let you know they’re on their way.

Smarter wait times

What’s worse than a long wait? A wait that’s even longer than the estimate. As hosts use Waitlist Me and can see their quoted times next to actuals, it becomes easier to quote more accurate waits.  

Contact us for a free trial and see how Waitlist Me can help improve your customers’ waiting experience today!

We have recently added some new sets of features to Perklist, the new service we have been developing to make loyalty and customer engagement simple and effective for small businesses.

Better Manage Your Online Reputation with Review Public Tracking

In today’s digital landscape, online reviews can make or break a business. Perklist empowers you to take control of your online reputation by streamlining review management from Google and Yelp.

With Perklist, you can:

Increase Personalized Engagement with Customer Profiles

In today’s competitive market, building strong customer relationships is vital. Perklist’s customer profiles empower you to do just that, offering a centralized area for tracking interactions and preferences.

From feedback and perks to visit history and private messages, these profiles provide a multi-dimensional view of customers. This information allows you to tailor your engagement strategies, anticipate their needs, and create personalized experiences that keep them coming back for more.

With easy onboarding and seamless integration into your existing workflow, Perklist makes it simple to unlock the power of data-driven insights. Embrace the future of customer engagement and help your business thrive.

While most of the places that use NoshList are restaurants, we have seen more and more businesses from different industries use NoshList to manage customer waits. The addition of our new reservations feature has made NoshList even more appealing to any business that schedules future appointments, whether they have a walk-in waitlist or not.

Not all businesses have WiFi or want to get an iPad or Android tablet though, so it is great for those businesses that NoshList also runs on any computer right from the browser and also on Clover. So we were thrilled to be able to join First Data in their booth at the RetailNow conference highlighting Clover and some of the top apps running on Clover.

Here are some shots from the event:

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.

What kind of device can be used for the Waitlist Me service: a tablet, computer, or smartphone? Yes, yes and yes! The service can be used on iOS and Android mobile devices using apps from Apple iTunes or the Google Play Store as well as on computers through web browsers. You might choose to use one or a mixture of these depending on the size of your business and the features you want to utilize.

iPads and iPad Minis are the most popular device options due to the popularity and solid performance of these tablets. It is important to make sure the device is a newer model capable of running the most current version of iOS available, as Waitlist Me is optimized for the latest version in accordance with Apple’s guidance for developers. You don’t have to go out and buy the newest iPad. You can use a prior generation model if you already have one, but for example, you would not want to use an old iPad 2 that cannot run operating systems higher than iOS 9 with Apple now on iOS 14. You can check here whether your existing Apple device currently has or is able to update to the latest iOS version.

Android tablets are another popular choice for running Waitlist Me. Android has a wider range of manufacturers and price points, and to some degree you get what you pay for. We don’t recommend buying a cheaper Android tablet for less than $150, as you are more likely to run into performance issues. Look for a device with at least 2 GB of RAM, which would be in the middle of the range for Android tablets. The Samsung Galaxy Tab A is a popular choice. As with Apple, we advise using a tablet that is updated to the latest Android OS. Instructions for how to check and update your Android version can be found here.

You can also use Waitlist Me in a web browser on a computer or tablet, and we recommend using Chrome or Firefox for the best performance. Some of Waitlist Me’s more advanced features, however, are only available when using our iOS or Android apps on tablets.  For instance, our apps for tablets you can use our self check-in kiosk feature, the floorplan view, and a few other features that aren’t available in the browser.

Likewise, iPhone or Android smartphones can be used to run the Waitlist Me app and access the basic functions of the service like adding guests, sending notifications, adjusting assignments, etc. To take advantage of features like the spatial floorplan view, you would need to use a tablet with a 7” or larger screen.

Waitlist Me will also run on a Kindle or Fire tablet in a pinch, but we don’t recommend these devices due to performance limitations for more than basic waitlist management for places with lower usage. They are comparatively low-end devices designed more for consumers to use for reading e-books and other forms of entertainment.