"How much longer until it's my turn?"
With Waitwhile we make answering this question easy for you by displaying it in on the Waitlist, but in this article, we break down how our wait time estimation works.
The Basics
In order to estimate a guests wait time, Waitwhile checks to see how many Staff you have working, Service information, and other statistics collected over the lifetime of the waitlist. Every time a guest is waitlisted and served, Waitwhile stores the important information to be able to better estimate a wait time next time they visit.
Using your Services
If you have added Services to your Location, Waitwhile checks the Service duration you have listed, and uses that number instead of it's gathered the information for the average wait per Service.
For multiple Services, Waitwhile uses the sum of the duration of all of the Services the guest has chosen.
Over time, Waitwhile will learn about the actual duration of your Services and once it's accumulated enough data, it will begin using it's own time estimations if they seem more accurate (Don't worry - this feature is optional).
Using your Resources
If you have added your Resources as an option to your Waitlist, things get a bit more interesting. 🤓
Waitwhile checks to see the Resource's working hours - if they are different than whatever has been listed for the business.
Waitwhile keeps track of what Resource is serving which Guest, and then how long is left depending on the Services chosen. If a guest has a Service specified, we use the sum of the duration of all Services the Guest has chosen.
The end result is that we now know what the estimated wait time is for each Resource.
More Use = Better Wait Times
The more you use Waitwhile, the better the wait times becomes. Our system learns about your average wait times and keeps calibrating our estimations so they get better for every guest you serve.