I’ll be the first to admit that when it comes to exercising your right to vote, we have a better job as a nation to do in making sure people are both aware of the issues and able to actually make their vote count. That said, when people make the effort to do so with pride and conviction, shouldn’t the government at least be prepared? In yet another case of voter administration challenge (just wait until the next election phase really comes into full swing), people were denied a right to vote, actively being discouraged due to long lines. See the full post here. Let’s make it easy on people in the future Mississippi, let’s make sure every willing voter gets to cast their interest -and that it is counted, not discounted. It can be done with QLess.
Waiting Takes Painful Toll
We all see waiting as a painstaking activity that decreases consumer productivity and morale while hurting customer service and margins. Often times however, the repercussions of waiting are far more unfortunate. Without sharing a commentary on world politics, waiting in line poses serious health and security concerns. In this recent story from Lahore, people waiting to retrieve their pension funds, are forced to endure conditions unsuitable for anyone and the toil of waiting in line to collect this benefit yields the most unpleasant of all results. Government services worldwide can benefit from making the experience of a customer collecting benefits, renewing licenses, filing documents and the like far less strenuous with QLess. The world would certainly be a better place if we alleviate these types of situations.
The News Just Keeps Getting Better
We keep telling you how QLess is revolutionizing the way people wait in line – or rather don’t wait in line. So it probably comes as no surprise that our unique usage of SMS to rid the world of its lines has been recognized as a first place winner in Clickatell’s recent awards. You can check out the good news here. Thanks Clickatell! We’re excited to be part of a solution that is transforming how people to business and customers get their time back to be more productive.
New DMV Building, But Same Old 3 Hour Wait
Just wanted to share a Letter to the Editor of a newspaper that was forwarded to us here at QLess. We’ve redacted the pieces that identify which DMV is involved, so as not to exacerbate the situation. But it’s great to hear that concerned citizens, when faced with long waits imposed on them by their local government, are speaking out and telling them to get QLess to respect their time!
Text of the Letter follows:
Unhappy With New [DMV]
I just saw your article in the paper. I have to say I was not at all impressed by my recent three-hour wait to renew my license at the new expensive facility in [redacted] that our tax dollars paid for.
They could have just started using QLess (www.qless.com) service to set appointments and not even built the new building, that they can’t even afford to staff properly. I did see the 12 stations, but only three were staffed.
Take a public survey of all the people who have used the new facility and I am sure they will be more than happy to share their thoughts.
I heard many people complaining when I was there.
It was a mid-Friday afternoon and not very crowded at all.
Picture attached shows only three windows open. There has been no change in service. It is a joke. They need to get with the times and let people make appointments. If they are not there when called, move on.
The only positive comment I have is that the gentleman who helped me after my tireless wait was very nice and friendly.
I think this is a nice quality for an employee to have, being he probably had many nasty dissatisfied customers before me and he was still jovial. Impressive!
Respectfully,
Janice
If your government, or any business that you frequent, is wasting your time by making you wait, we encourage you to do the same as Janice, and let them know that there’s a better way! QLess Mobile Queuing lets you hold your spot in line using your cell phone, and get a text message or phone call when it’s your turn to be served. You can wait however and wherever you want!
Thanks Janice. We hope that we can help make a difference for your next trip to the DMV. We won’t rest until we’ve accomplished our company’s mission of eliminating waiting in line!
–Tim
“I can now come back to my favorite restaurant again!”
One of our favorite customers, Datz Tampa, recently shared the following customer feedback with us.
I have been a regular at Datz since it opened and have always enjoyed my meal and the atmosphere. Recently it has become too crowded and difficult to get a table, thus I have not come often. Tonight I tried your new QLess call-ahead service and was very pleased with the whole experience. The text notification worked perfectly! Thanks for making that service available, I can now come back to my favorite restaurant again! — Tara
Tara, if you’re listening, the whole team here at QLess thanks you for your kind words. Customers like you are the reason we do what we do!
–Tim
Our hearts go out to the victims of the quake, tsunami and now nuclear disaster in Japan. There are now queues everywhere –people waiting for food rations, people standing in line for transportation, to leave the country, and more. The last thing the Japanese need right now, with so much rebuilding to be done, is to stand idly in line. So QLess is donating its mobile line management solution for any lines affecting the victims in Japan. If you know someone who knows someone in Japan who could benefit from this, please let them know!
–Alex
A QLess Milestone: 1 Millionth User!
We recently reached a great milestone and wanted to share. Last month, Jennifer Lin, a student at the University of Texas at Dallas, used QLess and her cell phone to hold her spot in the virtual Enrollment Management queue. 21 minutes later, she was able to show up and drop a class. In addition to the 21 minutes of her life that Jennifer got back by using QLess, we’ve now saved our total user base over 24 years of waiting in line!
Congratulations Jennifer! You will always have a special place in our hearts. 
Tune into QLess on the Colin McEnroe Show
Earlier today, Charles Marrelli, Director of Experience Design at QLess, was a guest on the Colin McEnroe Show to discuss our solution to the problem of waiting in line. He was joined by a panel including Dr. Ken Chelst, professor of Operations Research at Wayne State University; Sara Frias, Marketing Director at Lake Compounce; and Melody Curry, Commissioner of the Connecticut DMV. Dr. Chelst, a foremost authority on queuing theory, said that QLess “sounds like a brilliant strategy”.
The entire show is freely available for download or streaming on yourpublicmedia.org. Charles joins the discussion at the 22-minute mark. Check it out!
Santa Goes QLess, Restores Mom’s Sanity
QLess has some new fans over at In Line Waiting, a blog where, in their words, “you can read and share funny stories and practical tips on ridiculously long lines and the bizarre people and situations that go hand-in-hand with them.” The staff there discovered QLess last month, and then invited us to write a guest post on their site. So head over to read Alex’s post there: Santa Goes QLess, Restores Mom’s Sanity to find out all about how QLess and Santa are teaming up this holiday season to give the gift of time back to otherwise-weary kids and parents, and the gift of more customers and more revenue to the photography company, mall management, and our sponsor, AT&T.
Will Ross has posted an elegant and disturbing poem about waiting for service at the Sprint store at 72nd and Dodge in Omaha, Nebraska. He doesn’t indicate how long his wait actually was, other than noting that he didn’t start taking notes and working on his poem until he’d been waiting for 35 minutes.
QLess at Vodafone lets customers wait for service however, and wherever they want to
Let’s count all of the ways that Sprint screwed up Will’s customer service, and could have improved it with QLess:
- Trapping Will in their store for over half an hour while he waits for service. QLess mobile queuing lets customers hold their spot in line using their cell phone, so they can wait however and wherever they choose to. This dramatically reduces their perceived wait time, even if their actual wait time doesn’t change at all.
- Letting customers jump the line. Maybe Sprint employees were intentionally doing this, and maybe it was with good reason. But the point is that, to Will, all he sees are customers who entered Sprint’s single virtual line after him getting served before him, and he finds it infuriating. QLess lets you configure multiple queues if you need to serve customers in different orders, depending on what type of service they’re waiting for (e.g., new sales versus billing issues.) And QLess will make it clear to them where their spot is within their specific queue, and keep them up to date on what’s going on.
- Letting an incoming phone call take priority over customers who took the time to come to the store, and have been waiting much longer than the customer calling in. QLess will let you redirect those callers to a virtual call-back queue, so they can simply hang up once they’re in the queue, and you can call them back as soon as they have reached the front of the queue. Everyone gets served in a fair order, and nobody has to sit on the phone on hold!
- Angering customers who see staff “procrastinating”. Those staff members may or may not have been wasting time, but the point here is that, with QLess, Will wouldn’t have had to waste his time waiting inside the store, so he wouldn’t have known (or probably even cared), if some of the staff were not moving as quickly as he would like them to.
Not only is Sprint damaging their customer relationships with poor service, but they’re literally watching revenue simply walk out the door, as customers get fed up with a long wait for service. A recent survey found that 24% of consumers abandon their purchases, and walk out of the store when faced with a long line. In Will’s story, 14 customers were standing around waiting. If only half of them were waiting to sign up for new service, that means that 2 of those 7 likely walked out of the store, and decided to get a phone somewhere else. New customers are worth literally thousands of dollars in revenue to Sprint. If they have 2 customers per hour abandoning their purchases, over an 8 hour day, that single store is losing over $10,000,000 in revenue each year, simply because their customers are tired of waiting for service.
Sprint, and other retail stores that are making the same mistakes, if you’re listening, QLess can help! Let us free your customers from waiting in line, and save you from stories as embarrassing to you as Will’s.
–Tim
http://qless.com
