Token based Queue Management – Old Problem, New Solution

 

Managing Queues are an age-old challenge, in many industries. Everybody views lengthy Queues as ‘Annoyed customers’ & ‘Waste of time’.

At a first glance, it comes to mind that ‘How difficult can it be to manage a Queue ?’. Get them to line up and serve them from the head of the queue.

Queuing occurs when your demand exceeds supply. Most of us will say … “Hey that’s a good problem to have!” But if not managed correctly, It will result in unhappy customers, negative brand experience. Your Service Queues will start thinning and may disappear soon.

One of our Customers had a vision to build a Queuing platform, in the cloud, which can be easily configured to resolve Queue Management challenges for almost all Service/Product Queue situations in any business.

Queue Management is an already solved problem, but we could clearly see the biggest challenge: building a Service Queue Management PLATFORM to cater to queuing challenges in ANY business, Delivering tangible business benefits to all.

Queuing has its nuances in every business use case like retail, healthcare, hospitality, event management, etc. It was critical to get the solution of the problem right, to ensure flexibility, integrations, provisioning to fit different use cases in different businesses.

CoreView came up with a multi-tenant SaaS architecture, with critical components like Queue Business Logic, Scheduling, Notifications, Integrations, Event Hooks, Service APIs.

The solution was centered around a concept of Token, which was issued to the entity/person queued.

• The solution supported flexible Q configurations with smart capabilities, viz..
• Daily Token Queues – Q Service Manager could issue tokens for daily consumption only,
• Daily Appointments – Q Service Manager with intra-day slot assignments
• Future Appointments – Q Service manager assigns specific time/slots for future dates
• Single point Q Service configurations, to drive multiple service queues across different locations.

Magic of accommodating walk-in/VIP guests within the queue, without affecting other queued members.

The solution allowed for multiple scheduling models, applicable for multiple businesses out of the box, viz…

Sequence-based, continuous – First come first serve, with an optional limit on the count. e.g. Event Registrations

Sequence-based, daily – First come first serve, with an optional limit on count and end time. e.g. Retail, Restaurants

Appointments, strict time slots – Calendar with fixed time slots, One requestor per slot. e.g. Healthcare, diagnostic centers, etc …

Appointments, Flexitime slots – Calendar with approximate time slots, Multiple requestors with possible overlap. e.g. Healthcare, Retail …

The solution was built with the end user convenience in mind. We decided not to tax the user with yet another app, yet another password to remember. (I am glad we did not contribute to the growing App Fatigue 🙂 )

We chose a simple communication mechanism of SMS, for customer convenience. And hey it works without Data as well.

The entire Service Queue management can be done by a service manager personnel from a handheld phone/tab from anywhere.

This solution allowed for a transparent Service Q management, through simple steps, e.g. Customer Sends SMS Request to Enqueue, Receives Token via SMS, Customer in a virtual Queue, doing whatever and wherever Receives SMS alert as Customers turn is up, Customer shows up at the site of service delivery, & is service request fulfilled

To cap it all, the Analytics reveals very useful patterns, like Customer Volume Analysis, e.g Visits per day/week/month  Service Management Analysis, e.g. Peak hours, Load distribution, etc. Customer Loyalty Analysis, e.g. Returning customers Opportunities Analysis, e.g. Requests outside service hours, holidays.

Now that the customer is sitting atop of a pile of curated, relevant, customer data. We are helping him out to mine insights using ML and Deep learning techniques to improve Employee Shift Scheduling, Inventory optimizations to begin with.

We simplified the deployment and provisioning so much, that we could get new customers up and running in less than a day.

This solution is operational and delighting our Customer and their Customers.

For the service providers, it is providing quieter waiting areas, paperless waiting lists, boost in service volumes without increased capacity and most importantly it has helped them earn the customer trust.

For the end-users, it has created No Wait zones, given them peace of mind when in a Queue via easy to use & transparent queuing

I am proud of our team, which set out to create this solution with tangible business outcomes. We are clearly seeing them being delivered day in day out …

• Improved Customer Experience
• Simplified Service Management via cloud, smartphones, tablets
• Hassle-free Queue Management
• Customer-focused Analytics

This is a great example of innovative and relevant solutions using available technology, to solve an age-old business problem.

In the POST-COVID time, this solution is proving to be more relevant than before. It provides a basis for a contactless solution and breaks the length of Queues into smaller manageable groups.

Let us know how can CoreView, help you manage your Queues in your business?