When using the Add Yourself features, whether through Kiosk Mode or the Web Widget, there are several ways you can display an estimated wait to customers. Simply navigate to the Settings > Add Yourself > Main View. Here you can select the wait time that fits your business best. 

People and Groups – Show the number of parties and the total number of people on the list.

People – Show the number of people on the list.

Minutes By Group – Display an estimated time by multiplying the number of parties by a number of minutes you specify. For example, selecting 5 minutes will multiply the number of groups on the list by 5, and present that result as the estimated wait.

Minutes By People – Display an estimated time by multiplying the total number of people on the list by a number of minutes you specify. 

Last Estimated Time – Report the last estimate given by your staff.

List View – Show the public view of the waitlist, so people can see where they are in line.

Hide – No estimates, just go straight to the Add Yourself part.

Here are a few examples:

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. 

It is pretty universal that people don’t like waiting, and that businesses can serve customers better by improving wait experiences. But as we have seen a wide range of different businesses across multiple industries and countries use Waitlist Me, we have also learned that there is a good degree of variation among the types of customers or groups waiting and the level of information needed to best serve them.

To add to many of our other customization features, we have recently added more options for the main waitlist view. It’s easy to streamline the views of your waitlist by choosing the level of information you need and removing unnecessary details. You can customize the columns shown, the information displayed in each row, and what type of stats you’d like to see.

You’ll find these settings in your app by tapping the Gear icon > Customization > Waitlist View.

Columns – Choose the Waitlist Info option to edit the information you want to see in each column. You can display the status colors or hide them. Show the group size, or get rid of it if you serve individuals. Hide the Assignments column if you don’t assign customers to tables, staff or other resources.

Rows – Also in the Waitlist Info section there are options for the level of information to display in each customer’s row. Would you like their phone numbers displayed on the main page? Do you need to see how many kids and/or seniors are in each group? How would you like to see wait time quotes – as minutes, ETA, or both? Choose what works best for you.

Statistics – From the Waitlist View section of the Settings, the Wait Estimates and Totals options allow you to customize the display of the analytics bar at the bottom of the screen. Use the Wait Estimates > Display Groups to set 3 ranges of group sizes for calculating average wait estimates.

The Total Settings will allow you to display the number of people waiting, the number of groups waiting, or both. Also, choose how many hours you want to see Total Served stats for (a full day, or less than 24 hours so you can see stats by shift).

When your time is money, how you manage that time makes a difference. For many CEOs and executives, an ace admin team or executive assistant manages the schedule with aplomb. But regardless of how good your support staff is, there are always ways to make your office run more efficiently. Waitlist Me is one of those ways.

Waitlist Me is a waitlist management app that ensures everyone who needs face-time with the boss gets it, whether they need a 30-minute meeting or 60 seconds for a signature. Here are five ways Waitlist Me can transform your office.

Squeeze in meetings between appointments

Traditional calendars can make it difficult to spot and best utilize smaller blocks of open time. Waitlist Me makes it easy—and we let you color code everything according to, well, whatever you want. Supply each department with a color, or each type of appointment, and create the schedule that makes sense for you.

Set up office hours for drop-ins with staff

An open-door policy—or an occasional open-door policy—can do wonders for company culture, but it can also turn your hallways into long lines of employees who want CEO input. Waitlist Me helps create order by letting employees stay at their desks until go-time. Our text alert feature lets them know exactly when to knock on your door.

Give CEOs more control over who to see when

First come, first serve? That’s up to you. Waitlist Me lets you see key information at a glance on all the people needing your attention.  If you spot something urgent further down the list, it is a cinch to take that one first by sending a quick text to that person.  Or you may select items to clear off your list based on how much time you have available, whether you can cover an item in another meeting, how often you already see a particular person, or whatever you like.

Let employees book themselves into free time

Most assistants have far more on their docket than fielding requests for 5 minutes of your time. Take those calls off their plates by letting employees request quick appointments themselves. Waitlist Me’s Add Yourself feature lets them do just that—and you (or your admin) can quickly add them to your waitlist without turning the request into a full-blown conversation.

Keep employees from losing work-time waiting around

Nobody wants to see a parade of toe-tapping employees outside their office door. Nix it starting now thanks to our public waitlist feature. Staffers can check their place in line right from their work stations, which means they can increase their productivity without sacrificing the opportunity to get the input they need from you.

We are excited to announce a new set of calendar views that make managing and scheduling reservations and appointments even easier.  Building on our previous streamlined list views, the new calendar features let you see your availability at a glance so you can plan ahead and deliver great customer service.  View total scheduled customers by month, week, or day and just tap on a specific time to schedule a new customer in a few seconds.

Reservations

With the Reservations and Group options in your waitlist settings, you can make reservations for groups of different sizes and see the total number of customers as well as groups in your calendar.  The daily view also makes it easy to schedule reservations for specific tables if your business is a restaurant.  Or in other businesses you might make reservations for room numbers, rental items, tour guide names, and so on.  Here is a video on how it works.

Appointments

With the Appointment and Individual options in your waitlist settings, you customize scheduling to not ask for or display group size, since you’d normally be meeting one person at a time.  The daily view lets you schedule appointments for specific team members or people at your business. Depending on your business these might be the name of hair stylists, sales people, technicians, doctors, and so on.  Here is a video on how it works.

Here is how the daily calendar view looks:

Monthly calendar view:

Weekly calendar view: