What is it and how does it work?
By activating Classic Wait Time Estimation you need to configure the settings correctly to have an accurate estimation. At the most basic level, this method uses your inputs to determine the expected time to service each individual in line and then together for everyone in line to get to the estimated wait time. For this reason, service durations play the most important role in predicting the wait time of a queue.
This method is flexible and can account for many additional nuances such as Business hours, Staffing hours, Number of active servers, Current guests being served, Buffer times between guests, Type of service, Influence of party size, Speed of individual resources, Etc.
How do I set it up?
Step 1: Navigate to Settings > Waitlist and scroll until you see “Wait times”
Step 2: Under the header Choose an estimation method, click the toggle button that says “Classic (default)”. If it is purple that means it is successfully enabled.
Define service durations:
Now that Classic Wait Time Estimation is turned on, you have two more decisions to make:
Set up several services vs. offer only one service
Manually input expected service durations and number of servers vs. let our system use your historical averages and active resources
The steps below will help you configure these options for your Classic wait time estimation.
Set service durations if you offer one service or all your services have similar average serve durations:
Step 1: Navigate to Settings > Waitlist and scroll until you see “Wait times”
Step 2: Configure your serve capacity if you have not done so already
Step 3: Under “Choose and estimation model” select “Manually set serve durations” and input the time it takes a single person or party to be served. A drop-down is available to adjust the time scale (minutes, hours, days, etc.).
If you do not know the average serve duration, we can use your historical data to set the serve duration automatically. This works best when you have more than 50 visits. To turn on:
Step 1: Navigate to Settings > Waitlist > Wait times
Step 2: Under Classic Wait Time Estimation click the toggle “Learn wait time from historical data”
Note: Do not worry if you do not track when guests are done being served as it has no impact on this calculation.
Set service durations if you offer multiple services with different serve durations:
First set up separate services (see a guide on how to do this here). Once you have services set up, you have the option to assign wait durations to each service individually as well as edit their service hours.
Note: If you do not assign a wait duration to the specific service, the default duration set in Settings > Waitlist > Wait times > Serve duration will be used. If you do assign a wait duration to the specific service, this will override the default serve duration set in Settings > Waitlist > Wait times > Serve duration.
If you do not know the average serve duration for each service, you have the option to use historical averages by service as well. To turn on historical averages:
Step 1: Navigate to Settings > Waitlist > Wait times
Step 2: Under Classic Wait Time Estimation click the toggle Use system average for your location (by service if available). The historical averages will kick in after a service has 50 visits, so in the meantime be sure you input your best guess per service under the service settings.
Setting up Resources in Waitwhile (see a guide here)
Resources impact how your wait time estimations are calculated. The following resources settings have an impact on wait time estimation:
Normal speed to complete service (1X) - this will act as a multiplier to the serve duration. If you set this to 1.5 it will assume the resource will serve guests faster than the provided serve duration from the previous paragraphs. Vice versa, setting this value to 0.5 will assume the resource will take double the amount of time to serve guests.
Resource availability: Resource availability whether it is set manually or using “Available hours” impacts the number of resources available to serve guests overriding the value set in Settings > Waitlist>Wait times > Number of Resources.Additionally, if a guest is assigned to a specific resource that is not available, their wait time will account for the time until the resource is available again.
If you are looking for other ways to configure your wait time estimation please check out our overview here