How to Use Big Data to Improve the Waiting Line Experience

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Big data is more than a buzzword. It represents a real opportunity and challenge for businesses of all types that are striving to build a competitive advantage. As the volume, velocity, and variety of data compound at astounding rates, enterprises with the ability to draw out meaningful connections will win.

Big data, when used to its full potential, can aid retailers in increasing their operating margins by more than an estimated 60 percent, according to a2011 McKinsey Global Institute report. Unfortunately, when businesses are unable to handle big data, or see its true value, they can easily be left behind.

In order for big data to be valuable it needs to drive decisions and actions. And there is no more effective action for improving a waiting line than offering solutions in real time.

The Influence of Big Data on Queue Management

Today’s marketplace is constantly gathering data – about the number of customers, their shopping habits, their purchase decisions, what influences their choices, and so much more. This means there are extraordinary opportunities for retailers to capture relevant data specifically when it comes to a waiting line and the checkout experience. Average wait times, the length of the queue, a service agent’s idle time, traffic patterns, customer arrivals, and so on, can all be captured.

The customer journey can be tracked from start to finish through sophisticated virtual queuing, electronic queuing, and video analytics systems. And this incredible insight offers businesses multiple opportunities to improve the customer shopping experience. Big data can help optimize customer throughput, increase service efficiency, and improve communication with customers.

But just because a business is privy to such queuing information does not mean that their operation will automatically improve. The key is to make this data available and action-oriented in real time.

Using Big Data and Queue Technology to Take Action in Real Time

Queuing technology is a must-have system for managers who want actionable intelligence that will allow them to be proactive, prevent problems before they occur, or nip a situation in the bud before it has an opportunity to get out of hand.

Consider the following situations where real-time intelligence can be used to alter queues in the retail world:

  • A waiting line is overflowing with people in a store equipped with a video analytics system. The system picks up on this bottleneck and sends a real-time alert to a store manager to open more registers to accommodate the crowd.
  • A store’s virtual queuing kiosk is experiencing a high number of customers registering for a particular service. Queue technology alerts a store manager at that moment to immediately make additional service stations available to manage the increase in customers.
  • Transaction times at one of a store’s service areas are taking an unusually long time. The store manager is alerted right away so they can investigate the problem.
  • A customer who has registered ahead of time arrives at a business and checks in at the virtual queuing kiosk. The queuing technology automatically places them ahead in the virtual line.
  • A VIP customer arrives and uses the virtual queuing kiosk to check in. The system alerts the assigned service agent so that they are able to address the customer by name.

The phrase “unexpected queue issues” doesn’t have to be in a retail manager’s vocabulary. There needn’t be a reason to explain why there were so many abandoned carts during a busy time, or why transactions were taking longer than usual. Queue technology offers the big data that businesses need to make changes in real time, avoid queue problems, enhance the performance of their store, and elevate the customer experience.

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