The waiting time is one of the
important factor to retain the customer for the long turn. The less
in waiting time will attract more customer also helps to retain the
existing customer and more in waiting time is vice versa. Waiting
time is indirectly proportional to demand or capacity of business.
So it is required to understand the difference of service time and
waiting time, take precautionary actions to eliminate or reduce the
wait time. Based on the business, the models of waiting line can be
selected. Like,
- Single Line,
- Multiple Line,
Importance of Managing a
Waiting line:
It is important to manage the wait
time in order to eliminate unwanted barriers to business owned.
Like,
- Loss of Customers
- Image of the brand will start
declining.
- Impact will result in Quality of
the product / firm / Business
- Employees efficiency will get
reduced
- Cost of the Product will get
increased
- Less time to deliver the product /
Service
- Will result in Profit of the
business
In Order to reduce Waiting Time,
consider the following:
- A customer will sense the waiting
time more than service time, even if the waiting time is very less
comparing to service time.
- Excessive waiting line will reduce
the demand, will cause to consider other service provider. That
will result in advantage to the competitor.
- It is important to engage the
customer waiting time to retain them and to expand the demand in
future. In order to engage the customer’s wait time divert them
from the actual service required till their order taken into
process.
- In times of long time queue in
progress, let the customers feel their service are encounter and
taken in process, just by receiving the customer with warm welcome
and gather the information regarding the service required.
- Let the customer get aware of
Product / Service available at once they reach you.
- Segment the product /service into
different channels like single or multiple channels. For eg:
service to Customers in super market are depends upon their time
and product they choose before they bill it. Here the customer can
choose the bill counter which is short in waiting line.
- It is also important to choose
which Priority of service, First Come First Serve (FCFS), Last come
first serve or random service
Examples
- Fast Service Line
– the product ordered in Amazon reached before the actual
schedule date. It happened only because tie up with N no of
retailer and Distributor and selection of best transportation
mode.
- Slow Service Line
– Waiting in the Queue in hospital. Here the Probability
of actual waiting time depends on the entire service obtained by
each and every customer wait in the Queue. So the service gets slow
and probability in arrival time gets differ than predicted.