Waitwhile offers several automation features that will let you seamlessly integrate scheduled bookings with your live waitlist. These features are valuable for businesses that want to manage both walk-ins and appointments in a single streamlined system, allowing you to improve operational efficiency, accommodate more customers, and enhance the customer experience.
This article will walk you through the automation options Waitwhile offers to move your customers that have bookings to the Waitlist.
When moving bookings to the Waitlist is most beneficial:
High Demand Periods: During busy times, such as holidays or peak hours, syncing bookings with your waitlist ensures that you can handle unexpected surges. It allows you to keep track of both scheduled and walk-in customers without overwhelming your staff or the system.
Mixed Customer Flow: If your business serves both walk-ins and pre-booked appointments, syncing allows you to manage both types of customers in one place. This is especially helpful for businesses that need flexibility to accommodate walk-ins around scheduled appointments.
Improving Service Efficiency: When customers cancel or reschedule at the last minute, the sync feature helps fill these gaps by automatically pulling in customers from the waitlist, reducing downtime and maximizing efficiency.
Enhanced Customer Experience: Syncing bookings with your waitlist means customers can receive real-time updates on their place in line. This keeps them informed and enhances their experience by reducing uncertainty.
Managing No-Show Impacts: If your business frequently encounters no-shows, using sync ensures you can pull in waitlisted customers to keep things moving smoothly, minimizing idle time.
Single View of Customer Flow: Syncing your booking system with the waitlist provides a single, comprehensive view of all customers waiting to be served. This allows your team to better allocate resources and streamline service.
How to configure Automation settings
From your dashboard, go to Settings and
Select Automation from the sidebar menu.
From here, you'll find a variety of options to automate customer interactions and system behaviors.
Add Bookings to your waitlist before their start time
Automatically move a customer from Booking to the Waitlist at a specified time prior to their booking start time.
Enable the feature
Determine when to move bookings to waitlist
Select whether the customer should be placed at the front of the line or at the end
Note: Once a booking is moved to the waitlist they will remain in their current position regardless of whether the waitlist is moving faster than expected. Therefore, staff should monitor bookings on the waitlist to ensure that they are notifying them at the appropriate time.
Add bookings to your waitlist when tagged as Arrived
Configure this setting to automatically move customers to the Waitlist when they mark themselves as arrived on the Status page.
Using the automation to move booking to waitlist is a powerful way to handle unpredictable demand, improve customer satisfaction, and ensure operational efficiency in managing appointments and walk-in.
Have additional questions or need assistance? Reach out to us via chat or at support@waitwhile.com.