Waitwhile’s capacity management feature allows your business to:
Keep a tally of customers entering and leaving your location.
Restrict access & allow customers to join the line when your location reaches max capacity.
Turn on capacity management for your location
Go to Settings > Location > Serving. Toggle on Enable capacity management to get started.
Set Capacity Limit
The Capacity Limit should equal the total number of people that can be served at any given time. This will restrict your staff from being able to serve too many people at once. When capacity is reached, the next customer to be served will be rejected and remain on the Waitlist until a served customer is completed.
Note: The Capacity Management feature will take party size into account so make sure you set your max capacity based on people and not parties.
Enable waitlist only when capacity full
When enabling capacity management, you can determine whether you want to enable the waitlist right away, collecting data on every customer that walk through the entry door or only when your location is at capacity.
You can read more about this feature if you scroll down on this page.
Using capacity management in your guest flow
Once you've enabled capacity management, users on this location will have access to a new section on your Visits page where your capacity is monitored. You can access this section in one of two ways:
From Visits, click
More actions at the top right of the screen and select Table view. The capacity management counter will be visible at the top of the screen, above all the other sections.
From Visits, click Serving. The capacity management counter will be visible at the top of the screen, above the list of people currently being served.
The capacity management counter can increase or decrease in two different ways.
Automatically: Whenever you serve someone, the counter will go up. Similarly, when you mark someone complete or remove them from the Serving list, the counter will go down.
Manually: Whenever someone enters your space, you click the "+" button to increment your occupancy. This will add an anonymous person to the Serving list for the sole purpose of counting number of people being served. Whenever someone leaves, you click the "-" button to decrement it. This will remove the person who has been served the longest.
Warning: The capacity management counter does go towards your total visit subscription allotment regardless of whether they are a registered or an anonymous guest.
When max capacity is reached
If you have Enable waitlist only when capacity full turned on, your ability to join your waitlist is automatically disabled until capacity is reached. Rather, a message will appear that informs the customer "Woohoo! There is no line! You can enter now." Guests can simply walk on in without having to wait in line.
Once capacity is reached, your waitlist is automatically enabled and customers will need to register to your waitlist.
Note: Your public waitlist registration will remain enabled as long as there are registered guests on your waitlist even if you go below your capacity limit.
Tips and tricks
Don't forget to turn on your "Next-in-line" alert. This will send customers on the waitlist an automated SMS message when it's almost their turn to prompt them to make it towards the entrance. This helps automate the flow of customers and avoids any delays between a customer leaving and you letting the next person enter.
Customize your online check-in page with what message you want to display when you are over or under your capacity under Public Settings > Registration > Customize text fields.
Have additional questions or need assistance? Reach out to us via chat or at support@waitwhile.com.