Strange but true, the Brits seem to have a preoccupation with queuing. We will happily stand in line like a herd of sheep and patiently wait our turn at the post office. In fact we seem to queue up for most things in life including train tickets, at airports, for concert tickets, in the supermarket, at the bank and even outside a cashpoint in the freezing rain. Then there are the endless traffic jams and gridlock on the daily commute, and let's not forgot all those mad people who even queue up overnight camped out in a tent for that amazing January sale bargain.
But it seems the Brits are rebelling and according to research from Visa UK the British queue is under threat. The research revealed that 15 minutes is the turning point when annoyance kicks in, which swiftly escalates to anger at approximately 21 minutes. At 24.2 minutes queue rage reaches tipping point and we then generally make an official complaint or just leave in a strop. Queuing is bad for business and can seriously damage your bottom line, or worst case scenario it can put you out of business.
In the hospitality sector the customer is king, so don't fall into the trap of leaving your customers waiting in a queue. It will ruin your reputation and potentially send your customers to the competition. In a busy hospitality environment such as a theatre or club, having lots of customers converge at the bar at the same time is a challenge but there are ways of dealing with this. One of our clients, Brighton Dome has to cope with severe peaks and troughs. The first rush occurs 30-15 minutes before a performance when theatre goers arrive and order a drink, and then again during the interval when, over 3,000 customers could be waiting for bar service. They have successfully dealt with this interval rush by offering their customers the opportunity to pre-order drinks, but if you don't have the right business processes in place to do this you'll simply have to write every order down which can create chaos and some very unhappy customers. So how do you automate your order process, easy, all you need is a sophisticated piece of EPoS kit like pointOne and you'll soon be halving the time it takes to serve your customers, and maximising your bar revenues at the same time.
So don't leave your customers queuing at the bar, remember they may have had to queue somewhere else before they arrived. Instead give them some excellent service and hospitality. And if your business is suffering from the great British queue, do something about it before it's too late.