Queue management is the practice of effectively overseeing the movement of people around a store, library, hospital, airport or any other customer-facing environment. No matter your industry, in a lot of instances, it’s how queues are dealt with that becomes the issue, rather than the fact we have to queue at all.
In customer-facing environments, the importance of queue management is three-fold.
From a safety perspective, poor queuing systems can lead to overcrowding and in light of COVID-19, unnecessary contact between customers.
From an operational perspective. If poor queuing systems are in place, staff are more likely to try and manually organise the queue and hence experience a drop in productivity.
From a monetary perspective. If customers decide to leave the queue or are put off from even joining, this leads to a loss in profits. In some instances, a customer will not consider returning to a business that has poor, unmanaged queues.
Of course, every business in the present circumstances needs to consider its health and safety procedures with regards to COVID-19 transmission risks.
Queue management during COVID-19 is crucial for numerous reasons:
Government guidelines have been set out to ensure that your customers are able to queue safely. An effective queue management system will allow you to avoid overcrowding and maintain social distancing. As government guidelines change, a good queue management system will enable you to reconfigure your queue to remain compliant.
Social distancing is one of the best ways to stop the spread of the virus, so you need to ensure that safe distances are being kept in your queue. You can use our safe distance floor markers to demarcate 2-metre spacings in the queue. For crystal clear communication, you can use our custom social distancing webbing with any of our Tensabarrier retractable barrier products, to carry the latest messaging that explains the government guidelines. The webbing can be entirely customised to show any messaging or graphics that you like.
When implementing your queue management system, it’s highly important to consider hand hygiene to safeguard the risk of infection. Customers are entering commercial premises expecting hand sanitiser provision somewhere.
Our customisable hand sanitiser bracket can be placed on top of Tensabarrier posts, offering your customers the option to sanitise their hands whilst they queue.
Customer confidence has taken a huge hit during COVID-19 and customers are shopping on the high street less and less. Queue management can help customers to feel confident and safe when shopping in your store. If you can provide them with a safe and easy shopping experience, even during a global pandemic then they will be much happier.
If you’d like to find out more about queue management, take a look at our Definitive Guide to Queue Management. The guide includes information on:
At busy times, queues can often become longer than the queuing area and interrupt people who aren’t ready to wait in line, causing yet more annoyance. Queue management systems help to organise the queue and make it more appealing to join.
In a world where we have the option to ‘do it online’ or visit a competitor, keeping customers happy has never been more important. Fostering a positive queuing experience can increase customer loyalty and improve retention rates.
In peak queuing times, many industries can witness a drop in staff productivity. This is due to staff finding themselves trying to organise the queue manually. Using queue management tools takes the pressure away from staff and allows them to continue on with their jobs.
Intelligent customer management systems allow you to truly understand your customer flow and provide you with insightful data to understand customer affluence, behaviour patterns and distribution. This data can be translated to create a strategic plan to where you place your staff throughout the day.
Finding the right methods to handle customer flow can be difficult; after all, there’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution.
We’ve divided our queue management solutions into two groups: products to organise and optimise queues. These solutions can be used as stand-alone products or can be used together. Don’t forget – you can contact us if you need advice on what’s best for your specific queuing issue.
Looking at how to organise queues is a fundamental component in queue management. Ask yourself – where do queues occur? Are there peaks and troughs in your queuing patterns? Is your current queue structure working for your business?
Studies have shown that one of the most common issues found is ‘queue anxiety’. A well-designed queuing area can help organise waiting lines, remove the possibility of ‘queue jumpers’ and generally ease the flow of people.
At Tensator, we offer three physical solutions to organising queue layouts.
Our Tensabarrier solution is the world’s leading retractable queuing barrier. It’s a portable system – hence can be brought in/taken away depending on queue levels. Our exclusive Universal Base ensures that queuing areas remain accessible for wheelchair users, pushchairs and trolleys.
Find out more
ShortcutQ is a new feature that creates a shortcut to the front of the queue for customers to use at quiet times, enhancing the customer experience.
Find out more
For that extra bit of glamour in your queuing environment – try the Lawrence Post & Rope queue solution. The post and rope solution comes in a variety of finishes and colours to match your branding and can even incorporate signage to effectively guide the customer flow.
Find out moreThe process of optimising the queue can be broken down into two subsections.
Firstly, you want to ensure that the queue is moving as fast as possible. Secondly, you want to find out if there’s anything else you can be doing to improve the customer journey.
A single line queue has been proven to be the fairest and fastest way to process customers. Our Electronic Queuing solutions have been designed to eliminate hesitation at the front of the queue, meaning that customers are served more quickly and efficiently. eQ call-forwarding technology is available in both a manual and an automated version.
Find out more
With VQMS technology from Tensator, you can receive footfall feedback. This feedback helps you to understand customer affluence, behaviour patterns and distribution throughout your queuing environment. Therefore, you can use this information to design better queue layouts, promotional and marketing strategies to increase sales and drive revenue.
Find out more
In-Queue Merchandising (IQM™) from Tensator is a system that has been designed to use the queue as a revenue-generating area. Not only has this queue management solution been proven to generate extra profits, but also effectively distracts customers from the wait time and reduces frustrations.
Find out more
For customers with disabilities that limit their mobility, navigating public spaces can be a challenge. Today, the purple pound – or the spending power of disabled people – is worth an annual £249billion to the UK economy. Therefore, ignoring the needs of disabled customers is not only morally wrong; it can also be very costly to your business.
When a store is designed, the needs of the disabled customers will, wherever possible, be considered in the core layout. However, these requirements can be unintentionally forgotten in the day-to-day running of a store. Temporary additions to the store layout, such as promotional displays, can often affect accessibility.
Tips to improve accessibility in the queue:
Queues are not exclusive to one particular industry, in fact, queues are often expected in many situations. Here are four of our favourite queue management case studies.
Dunkin’ Donuts are a great example of how you can harness queue management in hospitality. They approached us in the hope of modernising their queuing environment. Our queue solutions helped to address concerns such as how to avoid clutter, organise merchandise and keep walkways clear for customers.
Proper government queue management solutions can really help to improve customer service in areas such as a council office like Derby City Council. We helped to minimise queuing times by providing personalisation as well as utilising displays in the centre to give information on wait times and other relevant information.
Maintaining effective queue management in airports can be tricky – due to the fact that there is often a lot of people in a small place, many of whom don’t speak the same language. Boston Logan airport is no exception – the airport sees over 40m passengers go through its doors every year. Our airport queue solutions were able to provide security information efficiently in multiple languages.
Patient flow management is an important aspect of any hospital design. Ensuring that hospitals are easy to navigate, corridors aren’t crowded and public areas remain safe are priorities for all healthcare providers. Queue management in hospitals requires thorough planning – as such, our queue solutions in this example helped RJAH Orthopaedic Hospital manage their patient flow.
The thought of queuing at the bank can often fill a customer with unnecessary dread. Take a look at our finance brochure to find out about the queuing solutions that we offer to ease the waiting experience in a bank.
Keep your customers in line and your profits high with our retail queue management solutions. Our brochure provides real-life examples of how queuing solutions can be incorporated into a retail environment.
Anyone managing airport passenger flow will understand the complex balance of ensuring safety whilst try to move people as quickly as possible. Read about our airport queue management solutions for more information.
Tensator® solutions are used across the world in many different environments and for a multitude of applications. Their strength, quality and versatility means their purpose can range from a queuing system, a crowd control aid, a signage solution or a safety barrier.
Why is preparing for people queuing outdoors important? Managing people queuing outdoors can be a challenge for any business. Especially when there are large crowds. If visitors are queuing for an event in busy venues, or waiting in line to go on a ride at a crowded theme park, managing your queue is crucial to […]
Read more
Why is event signage important for your venue? Well, when the world is a stage, first impressions are crucial. Your welcome signage could be the first thing an attendee sees as they walk in. It should be eye-catching and relevant to deliver the maximum impact. Otherwise, your visitors may difficulty finding their intended location. Implemented […]
Read more
Tensator® has been leading the customer journey since 1881. Today, we provide customer experience management consulting and turnkey queue flow solutions to customers in over 150 countries around the world. Our ability to deliver strategic solutions with a superior ROI has made us a preferred supplier for large-scale enterprises that depend on the effective movement and organisation of people.
© 2024 Tensator
