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Long lines cost retailers a collective $37.7 billion a year. They’re also the element of your customers’ shopping experience that they’re least happy with. Only 23% of shoppers say they are satisfied with the length of the lines at their preferred supermarket. Meanwhile, 18% of shoppers say they’ll choose a competing grocery store for a better checkout experience and a shorter queue.
Queuing plays a significant role in the customer experience — more than retailers previously thought. Finding ways to manage lines and create the best customer queuing system can have a considerable impact on how long customers wait and improve your ability to serve customers. We’ve created this overview of the processes, tools and tricks you can use to enhance your customers’ queuing experience.
Customer queues exist throughout your supermarket or retail store. Checkout aisles and service desks are two prime examples. Grocery stores may have additional, miniature lines at the deli or seafood counters. Take-a-number systems, often used in those departments, create customer queues without asking patrons to stand in a single file.
Meanwhile, department stores might create checkout queues for popular departments, making it easier for customers to find the checkout counter and wait in a shorter line. Anywhere where your customers have to line up to receive service in an orderly fashion counts as a customer queue. However, not all queues involve standing in line, in the traditional sense. You may have experienced a digital customer queue if you’ve ever waited to connect with a customer service agent online.
Customer queues have been a staple of retail and most in-person, service-based industries. Patients wait in a less-obvious customer queue at the hospital or doctor’s office. In this case, the line is disguised as a waiting room, with the queuing happening in the back office as nurses prepare exam rooms and keep a list of arrivals at the check-in counter. Restaurants employ customer queuing during busy times as diners wait to be seated. Dining facilities have found ways to improve the waiting experience by giving customers a call or text when their table is ready.
Queuing isn’t always first-come, first-serve. In stores, where most queuing involves customers physically standing in line, the order is determined by the speed of checkout lanes. This phenomenon is one of retail’s main concerns when it comes to customer queues. When lines are organized into parallel rows, some can get held up. Larger basket sizes, slow equipment or an issue requiring a manager’s attention can hold up the line for one register. This clog leads the lanes on either side to move faster. Customers become frustrated when they see people who arrived after them being served before them in the lines nearby. So, how can retailers resolve this and all the issues that lead to unbearable wait times?
The first step to resolving issues in the waiting line is understanding the customer psychology that contributes to them. Your customers can spend over an hour leisurely comparing brands, browsing your aisles and generally enjoying the experience for it to be suddenly sullied by a seven-minute wait at checkout. Here are some of the consumer behaviors at play in your checkout aisles:
A fast-moving queue prevents many of the revenue drains created by long lines. The right system will improve the organization of your queues and how your staff handles them. For example, one effective process would involve a cashier calling over patrons from a long line. The key to superior queuing is to reduce both actual and perceived wait time. Reducing wait times saves everyone time and increases store productivity. Lowering perceived wait times boosts customer satisfaction, even if the wait doesn’t change.
The good news is that the way you design your line can impact the wait time and how it feels to customers. Here are some strategies for your customer queuing system:
Of course, redesigning your checkout line isn’t the only way to manage customer queues. Here are a few tactics any grocer or retailer can use to speed up checkout lines:
People counters take an exact count of stores’ total daily visitors and reveal peak shopping times. Within the store, they root out bottlenecks and underused areas while mapping customer journeys. People counters are also crucial tools to control queues.
First, you can use people counting systems to track total visitors against sales. Understanding your conversion rate also reveals how many people skipped the register. Then, footfall data helps you learn what sends customers out the door. In-depth customer research through surveys and other methods may reveal the problem is unavailability or poor selection. If beelines for the exit stem from the checkout waiting area, you then know the problem is inconvenient queues.
Once you identify customer queuing as a significant pain point for your patrons, you can use people counting to resolve it. The first way is through staff optimization. If you install a people counter, patterns about your busiest hours will soon emerge. These peak hours often don’t line up with what we predict. Many assume their peak hours align with the end of the workday when traffic sometimes spikes during lunch breaks.
Once you establish these weekly patterns, you can assign registers accordingly. By keeping the checkout lanes staffed during your expected rushes, you’re prepared to serve an influx of customers. Knowing your real traffic patterns prevents you from understaffing because you think it will be slow. As an added benefit, you don’t have to staff as many registers during your off-hours, saving on labor and allowing you to use your team more effectively.
Besides your historical occupancy data, you can also leverage live reporting to adjust your checkout staffing. The average amount of time spent per shopping trip is roughly 44 minutes, according to Drive Research. If you have a real-time capacity counting system, you find out about spikes in your current occupancy about 30 minutes before those customers get in line to check out. While your weekly analytics should cover the usual rushes, live occupancy counting can help you get ahead of unexpected ones to prevent long waits.
The start of the COVID-19 outbreak marked a new era for grocery stores, suddenly deemed essential businesses. Stores struggled to keep up with the demand for cleaning products, soap and other essentials as customers stocked up to weather quarantines with unknown ends. Meanwhile, nonessential retailers closed their doors in wait of state reopening guidance. Stores evolved as they balanced social distancing with customer service. Many stores have undergone permanent changes in layout, as a result.
To maintain capacity, the next customer in line must wait until another shopper exits. The “one in, one out” system means the checkout line’s speed reflects the pace of the entry line pretty closely. So, boosting speeds at checkout will naturally improve the experience at the entrance.
One potential hangup is that 59% of consumers report using self-checkout more to protect themselves. These systems need to be cleaned often and can be slower if the technology confuses people. Even if your store uses parallel registers, a socially-distanced serpentine line for self-checkout can help. Also, keeping plenty of staff available to deal with technical issues can speed things up.
Other measures, like curbside pickup, can help you maintain correct social distancing by limiting the number of customers who enter the store. It works similarly to a digital sign-in system, where customers can book a time to have their items brought out to them. The waiting happens from the comfort of home rather than in a line.
Using a people counting system for capacity limits can be useful at your front doors. For example, the Traf-Sys SafeEntry software will display your current capacity limit and the number of “safe to admit” patrons.
The software also has the benefit of calculating your store’s busiest times. Since 66% of consumers say they now prefer to shop at slower times, information on your peaks is vital. Displaying this data in-store can be another service you provide to your customers. Further, posting your quietest hours can encourage more of your shoppers to visit then. By funneling more of your customers into your uncongested shopping times, you’ll keep capacity down at your busier times. It helps you maintain social distancing in-store while serving more of your customers quickly.
Traf-Sys people counting systems have helped retailers like you improve their queuing experience at the checkout with better footfall and occupancy counting. Our SafeEntry occupancy counting system provides a live report of your current occupancy, configured for every entrance. Accurate data helps you manage your entrance lines by letting in as many people as your limited capacity will allow, keeping customers happier and feeling safer.
For more information about our SafeEntry system or any of our customer counting solutions, request your free quote today.
