The Advantages of Queue Monitoring for Retail & Service Businesses

Customers don’t like waiting in lines. Service and retail workers get burned out being on the receiving end of grouchy guests forced to stand in long queues. And managers become irritated when backed-up checkouts undercut the number of transactions completed per hour.

Fortunately, smart technology now enables retail and service businesses to automate queue monitoring, alerting managers to when customers are left waiting too long, or if their sales floors are overstaffed during low foot traffic periods. 

Installing a queue monitoring system brings with it several observable benefits. 

Improves Customer Experience

Perhaps the most obvious benefit of queue monitoring, shorter wait times are near the top of any customer’s concerns list. They want to get in and out of your retail store or service business as quickly as possible. Wait times inflame customers.

By monitoring the queue at your customer service desk, reception area, or checkout, you can develop an accurate picture of how many employees you need to keep people moving through at a reasonable pace. 

Customers feel like they’re wasting time waiting in queues. So, when you keep wait times to a minimum, you end up with much happier customers. Their positive feelings will, in turn, quickly become associated with your brand, fostering further loyalty and driving up revenue. 

Increases Employee Productivity

If you have to rely on employees to manually count how many people enter your retail or service business, or identify how many are standing in a line, you’re wasting staff resources that could be better spent elsewhere. 

With an automated queue monitoring system, you’ll know precisely how many customers are waiting in line and be alerted to the need for more staffing to ease wait times. And if lines are really short, you can even be notified to shift employees elsewhere.

If lines are really short, you can even be notified to shift employees elsewhere.

Automated queue monitoring keeps track of your busiest times, enabling you to forecast how many staff members you’ll need present at any given time, such as during specific parts of the day, special promotional events, or periods of the year. 

Plus, your staff are freed up to do other things to further enhance customer experiences, as well.

Boosts Employee Morale

Wherever pain points exist for customers, frustrations build up for staff. Over time, those cantankerous interactions wear on employees, exacerbating any anxiety, melancholy, or exhaustion they may already be carrying over from their lives outside of work.

Alternatively, when you create smoother experiences for customers, you lessen the emotional and psychological toll your employees encounter. This boosts staff morale, which increases employee retention and retains more institutional knowledge that otherwise would leave with your burned-out team members. 

When employees know there will be just the right amount of staff working to accommodate customers, you also generate greater trust between them and your managers. They believe you have a firm grasp of what’s happening on your retail or service business floor. This confidence spreads among team members, nurturing a positive and motivated working environment. 

Reduces Operations Costs

Staff wages are typically the most expensive line item for a retail or service business’ budget. Fortunately, using an automated queue monitoring system saves you money by helping you avoid overstaffing during lulls in foot traffic. 

With a smart queue monitoring system, you can reliably project the number of staff you’ll need during each part of the day based on customer demand. Rather than having to calculate or guesstimate staffing needs manually, intelligent technology analyzes and generates those reports for you.

Get accurate data in real-time 

The benefits of queue monitoring don’t only save you money concerning staffing for customer service or on the sales floor, though. When you have a dependable way of predicting how many staff you’ll need at a given point, you can avoid delays related to shipping and receiving. Somebody has to be there to unload items or to ship products purchased online. 

Plus, other maintenance or inventory-related tasks need attention.

When you have a dependable way of predicting how many staff you’ll need at a given point, you can avoid delays related to shipping and receiving.

Without a smart queue monitoring system, you have to guess and hope that pulling team members away from the sales floor to conduct behind-the-scenes projects, such as stocking or inventory, won’t interfere with the customer experience. You also are left to wonder if you’ll have enough staff to serve customers and complete other vital projects on time.

With a smart queue monitoring system, you don’t have to rely on gut feelings. You have clear data informing your decisions. That way, you’ll always have the right number of staff available to serve customers while the rest attend to other tasks essential to keep your retail or service business running smoothly. 

Improve Queue Monitoring With General Security 

Keep in mind that commercial providers of queue monitoring systems like General Security typically offer businesses other smart crowd management technologies, including people counting, occupancy tracking, heat mapping, fire protection, access control, commercial security, and crowd gathering systems because they work well in tandem—creating a synergistic effect that grows your bottom line.

So whether you’re a retailer or service provider, automated queue monitoring is a cost-effective way to improve employee productivity and morale, enhance customer service, and reduce other operational expenditures. 

General Security provides industry-leading queue monitoring systems to improve customer experience, boost employee productivity and morale, and reduce operations costs for retail and service businesses. Request a free quote today!