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.

We announced an exciting new integration in January with Clover that puts our NoshList waitlist app directly in front of restaurant operators across the country. NoshList was one of the first apps to appear in Clover’s newly developed app marketplace. This is new and exciting for us because technology such as the Clover POS is leading the way for restaurant operators to efficiently update and integrate their front-of-house and back-of-house operations. Never before have waitlist apps been able to sync up with a restaurant POS, providing sales analytics based on waitlist names and phone numbers. Now, they can.

Clover, owned by First Data, is going after restaurant operators with modest businesses in an effort to treat them like large brands by giving them what they’re asking for: something more from a technology provider without the high price tag to match.

Clover is answering this call is by offering a merchant-driven technology tool based on the Android operating system. It’s smarter, more flexible and secure than what many of these operators have been using, and the fact that NoshList is featured as a tool within this technology makes what Clover is doing that much better.

For Clover users, the toolkit is future proof and includes a printer, cash drawer and credit card terminal. Additionally, it includes preloaded apps such as ours intended to give restaurant operators the ability to control and customize the tools best suited to their needs.

Additionally, we have recently made several new enhancements to our NoshList waitlist app. These updates let restaurant owners and management define pre-set notes, such as dates of birthdays and anniversaries, in the Quick Notes feature. The notes can be viewed in the wait list for easy reference and can be synced across each device used in the restaurant. The new app features a seating history display below the current list and people that add themselves to the list show up at the top with special highlighting to alert the hostess.

In addition to the new app features, the NoshList website now has several powerful analytical reports for paid premium users. The reports include an activity overview that highlights diner trends seated by the day, week or month, a visitor breakdown by age and gender, activity logs for custom analysis and loyalty metrics comprised of guests who visit your place when, how often, and their average length of wait.

The NoshList and Clover technology is based on flexibility and is a valuable tool restaurant operators can leverage to make their operations more efficient. And integration is easy!

When someone installs NoshList from Clover, it immediately pulls their merchant account information and links table orders directly to the table numbers entered into the POS. Restaurant staff can then view the customer’s name, order and visit history, giving them an opportunity to elevate the guest experience through rewards and direct marketing campaigns.

Here is a summary of the latest features that will be on display:

New Free features available to all:

• Quick Notes – Easily create a list of common notes to use when adding and seating parties.
• ETA – Choose an estimated arrival time for same-day reservations and larger parties.
• Seated View – View notes and parties seated in the main waitlist view.

New Premium features:

• Rich Analytics – Download activity, demographics, party size, and loyalty reports.
• Table Management – Customize and assign table numbers when adding and seating parties.
• Customizable Public Waitlist – Add information on daily specials, loyalty programs, coupons, and more to the public waitlist that guests can check from their phones while waiting.

With partners such as Clover, we will continue to push the boundaries of waitlist technology because we believe in doing things differently. We are a team of professionals focused to innovate an antiquated aspect of the industry,one we understand, appreciate and are passionate about.

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.

Waitlist Me offers the Add Yourself Web Widget to make serving customers quick and easy, whether you prefer they reserve a time in advance or simply join the list if there’s a wait. Advanced scheduling just got even easier with our new email reservation features. 

If your business wants to send automated reminders or needs additional information from customers before they arrive, then emails can be a great option. Also, they are not counted towards the bundled notification limits included with each subscription (US & Canada) or charged separately (all other international users/plans).

Enabling email notifications – To enable, navigate to the Notification settings for reservations (Settings > Customization > Notifications > Reservation). The Usage options let you choose whether the messages go out manually (by pressing the notification in the customer row in the waitlist view) or automatically (“Scheduled” option in the settings). In either case, the waitlist view notes and customer visit area of the edit view will show you when emails have been sent.

Customizing email notifications – Every email notification will automatically include the scheduled time of the reservation along with location information. In addition, it will include a customizable “Intro Message” that appears at the top of the email and can be used as an introduction or used to include basic instructions. Please note that there is a limit of 160 characters for the text in this area as it is intended to be simple. Pro Users can use the “HTML Display option”  to customize the body of the email to include images, provide more detailed instructions and more. Below is an example of these parts of the email.

Changing and cancelling – Email notifications also include a link for your guests to “Change or Cancel” their reservation/appointment. This link opens a browser window on their phone or computer where they can select a different time or cancel their existing reservation altogether. A standard email confirming any change will go out automatically.

We are happy to announce the winners of our special giveaway for Charleston area businesses that we did as part of the opening of our Charleston headquarters. Charlestonians were invited to submit names of local businesses that they’d be happier visiting if the wait wasn’t so bad.  In turn, Waitlist Me would select the top 10 submissions to provide a free year of the Waitlist Me service to help improve their wait experience.

Here are a couple of our favorite submissions:

“This is the best brunch/breakfast/lunch on Folly Beach. The wait is consistently 30-45 minutes, no matter when you visit, and there isn’t really a great waiting area, so most people have to stand in the parking lot.”  –  Lost Dog Café customer

“I love Hyman’s, but it is so crowded in the summer and tourist seasons.  I think locals like me would go there more often if the lines weren’t so bad or there was a better way to know when its your turn” – Hyman’s Seafood customer

“They’re the BEST brunch spot in the area…and they do an awesome dinner service as well. They take reservations, but it’s really tough to walk in and get a spot.” – High Thyme customer

And here is the full list of winners:

• 167 Raw
• High Thyme
• Hymann’s Seafood
• Kaminsky’s
• Laura Albert’s
• Lost Dog Café
• Old South Carriage Co.
• Page’s Okra Grill
• Taco Boy
• Tavern & Table

Customers are feeling the pain of having to wait, and businesses can use Waitlist Me to dramatically improve this experience. Waitlist Me makes it easy to manage a waitlist and send customers text notifications when ready for them, allowing customers the freedom to walk around and enjoy more of the beauty of Charleston while they wait.