Waitwhile’s capacity management is useful for many industries where the following is needed for their customer flow:
The ability to keep a tally of customers entering and leaving your store.
Limit entrance and allow customers to join the line virtually when your store reaches its max capacity.
Does this sound like your business? Read on - Here is how it works!
Turn on capacity management for your location
Go to Settings > Location > Serving. Toggle on Enable capacity management to get started.
Upon enabling capacity management, a couple additional options are provided. Firstly, you can set what the capacity limit should be, meaning total number of customers that can be served at any time. The next customer to be served will be rejected until someone currently served has been completed. To se up capacity limit, click on Set capacity limit and enter the number you want for your max number of served customers.
Secondly, using capacity management also lets you automatically activate the waitlist only when you're at capacity. To set this up, simply toggle on Enable waitlist only when capacity full. 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.
Remember: The capacity management counter does go towards your total 'check-in' numbers for your monthly subscription, regardless if the counter has been increased automatically or manually.
Our location is full - Now what?
If you have activated the feature Enable waitlist only when capacity full, your waitlist is automatically turned off when you are under capacity since customers can simply walk on in without having to wait in line. When they visit your online check-in page it will prompt them to walk up to your entrance directly without getting in line first.
Once enough people have entered your space and hit your capacity limit, your waitlist is automatically turned on. Customers will now need to join your waitlist in order to enter your space.
From here on, you will simply serve them from the Waitlist page once they enter and this will adjust your occupancy number. As before, when someone leaves you decrement it with the "-" button.
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.
You can automate the counting of customers that enter or leave your space through our integration with RetailNext. Please contact our support team on support@waitwhile.com if you would like to learn more about this.
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.