Projects: Queue Management For Cyclists

September 11, 2013 by Dave Haynes

Queue management systems are no-brainers as great customer service applications, as as content for digital signage screens.

If I am waiting for attention at a retail location, restaurant or government office, I will refer relentlessly to a screen that tells me where I am on the wait list.

Like POS, queue management systems have more typically been silo’d technology, but that’s starting to change. A Minneapolis start-up called Lift has developed a cloud-based, mobile-driven waitlist management app called Tikit that’s being used by the cycle retailer Cannondale at its first retail store located in Carle Place, NY.

The application is managed off a phone or tablet and is used by store associates to notify customers when new orders or repairs are ready for pickup. The notification system alerts customers via SMS, which frees those customers from having to wait in line or call for pickup information.

In store, a screen – using Signagelive – also lets people know where they are, if they are hanging around or don’t want an SMS.

It’s just web-based data, so querying one cloud system to steadily update another is pretty simple stuff. And has value.

There are people who think customer experience is all about the design, big ass video walls and ambient music. There are others, however, who will say the real “experiential” demands of many customers is good communications and tools that help them get what they need in ways that are faster or better. Queue management is firmly in the latter camp, and in a high-end cycle store where impassioned shoppers probably have endless questions, this would help.