Queue
Serve walk-in customers alongside your appointments
The customer joins the queue on their own phone, or on your tablet when they walk in. You see everyone waiting and every booked appointment in the same day view, and you call the next one when a gap opens up. The queue works alongside your booking calendar, or entirely without it.
Why the queue is worth it
Some people never book, ever
They come when it happens to suit them: on a lunch break, on the way home, walking past. A booking calendar never reaches them, because they do not plan the visit. The queue asks for no planning, and they appear in the same day view as everyone who booked.
The customer knows the wait before leaving home
Your business appears on the search map. The card shows how many are waiting and an estimated wait. When the wait is known, coming in is a small decision.
An empty chair earns nothing
The cancellation comes at the last minute, and your employee is left waiting. If someone is in the queue, calling them moves them straight into that gap. You are not hunting for anyone or working through a call-back list.
How it works
The customer joins the queue
From the tablet at the counter or from their own phone. They pick a service, can pick the person, and see an estimated wait before they confirm. You can also add someone to the queue yourself, by name.
You see the queue and the day in one view
Who is waiting, who has been called, whose turn is next. The same view holds the appointments booked in advance. You are not watching two systems or guessing which one is right.
You call the next one
Someone who joins the queue appears in the day view right away, at an estimated time. When you call them, that estimate becomes a confirmed booking. A call to the wrong customer can be undone for a minute, and they return to the same place in the queue.
What the queue includes
- Queue board
- Waiting, being served and done in their own columns. Move a customer to another employee, skip them for now, or mark them as a no-show.
- A kiosk for the counter
- A tablet or an old phone in a browser. The customer signs into the queue themselves, so you do not stop what you are doing. Nothing to install, and no account needed.
- Wait estimate and live status on the map
- The estimate comes from the length of the queue and the duration of the chosen services. Customers see the same figure in search results before they set off.
- Works with bookings, or without them
- Keep both, and queue customers settle into the gaps between appointments. Or start with the queue alone and add online booking later. You can also leave individual services out of the queue.
What the queue does not do
- Joining from a personal phone requires an account. Joining from the tablet in your business requires nothing.
- The wait is an estimate based on the queue and the services. It stretches when the day gets busy, and it is never shown to the customer as a promise.
- A queue belongs to one location. Several shops have separate queues, and they are not merged.
Questions about the queue
- What happens if the customer we called is not there?
- You mark them as a no-show and call the next one. The mark stays in the customer's details, so you can see later if it keeps happening. If the customer is merely late, skip them for now: they stay in the queue and their turn is not lost.
- Can I close the queue in the middle of the day?
- Yes. Closing stops new arrivals from joining immediately. Everyone already in the queue stays and is served normally, so nobody drops out mid-wait. You reopen it from the same switch.
Shall we go through this together?
A 30-minute online walkthrough. We show how this would work in your business, and if it does not fit, we say so.
Book a demo