How To Manage Your Customer Queues

How To Manage Your Customer Queues
Instructor: Brad Clevland
Released: 3/13/2023	Course Details 56m Beginner
Skills Covered Customer Service Queue Management		Course Link
Professional Certifications and Continuing Education Units (CEUs) N/A
Efficient customer queues are imperative for serving customers well and meeting expectations, but supply chain challenges, the “great resignation,” and other developments in the economy have led to long wait times and frustration for many customers. The good news is that, as you train your employees on the nature of queues and how to manage them, you can avoid subpar customer service and burned-out employees. In this course, customer strategy expert Brad Cleveland empowers you as a manager, as well as your team, to navigate and respond effectively to customer queues. Learn about the variables involved in customer queues and in a customer service team. Find out how to build an escalation plan for responding to customer queues that are building. Plus, explore effective practices you can use, individually and as a team, to serve customers in a dynamic environment. Source: LinkedIN Learning

The Nature of Customer Queues

Limited or scalable capacity

Is your capacity limited? Can you scale to meet the demand?

Scale resources to meet demand
Manage customer expectations

Be creative and be intentional on how you will manage queues.

Two common customer arrival patterns

Arrival Patterns

Random
Peaked

Random – can’t predict when customers will call at 10:01am, 10:02am, or 10:03am.
Peaked – network outage, flight cancellation, ball game ends resulting in a queue to exit parking.

Visible and invisible queues

Visible Queue
Any situation where the customers know where they are in the line.

At a grocery store or ticket venue, the customers can see the queue and grow happier as they get closer to the front of the line..

Invisible Queue
Customer expectation may be high but after some amount of waiting the customers begin to doubt that they going to get service. Doubt then changes to mild frustration and finally the customer feels they have waited too long.

Customer want to know what’s happening and they want alternatives. Alternatives such as you can text me or call me back.

Immediate and deferred work

Immediate
Handle as they occurs (phone, walk-in, chat)
Objective – Service level objective – X% customers reaching a customer service agent in X minutes

Other metrics such as average wait and longest wait should be considered as well.

Deferred
Can be handled later (email, filing)
Objective – Response time

Other metrics such as average time to respond and time to resolution should be considered.

Distinguish between immediate and deferred work
Set objectives for each.

You don’t need to know everything about queuing theory

You will need to make important decisions about the services you want to provide and the experiences you want your customers to have.

The seven factors of customer tolerance

Degree of motivation
Availability of substitutes
Competition’s service level
Level of expectations
Time available
Who’s paying for the queue?
Human behavior

Customer Queues: Planning Ahead

Establishing wait time objectives

Set objectives:
What time is appropriate in the customer service setting?

Wait-Time Data Sources

Benchmark
Survey customers
Gather customer feedback
Correlate wait times with customer satisfaction data
Analyze abandonment

Example Objectives

Service levels: 80% in 20 seconds
Average wait: less than two minutes
Queue: less than four customers in line

Be mindful of how your customers perceive queues.

Forecasting the work

Handling Time: The time spent handling customers including the time after the call to wrap-up.

Workload = Volume x Average handling time

Build forecasts in specific time increments – mainly in 30 minute increments.

Patterns:

Monthly Calls Offered
- Seasonal patterns
Calls by Day of the Week
- Examine if holidays play a part in spikes or drops in calls.
Half-Hourly Calls Offered

Use this information to create a Time Series Forecast – see Exercise Files for Additional Resources.

Recommendations:

Use historical patterns.
Find correlations in other data.
Use judgment.
Make adjustments.

Staffing for random arrival

Talk Time
The average time you spend directly with customers, in seconds.

After Contact Work Time
The time, on average, required to wrap up after the customer has left the queue.

Contacts per Half Hour
The number of customers you’ll serve within a half hour.

Service Level
Enter 20 seconds if you don’t have a service level, this is based on 80% response within 20 seconds.

Erlang-C Calculator tool available in Additional Resources.

Staffing for peaked arrival and deferred work

Peak traffic is a spike within a half hour.

Example:
It takes 3 minutes to provide tickets.
Four ticket booths open
Shuttle but drops off 25 customers.

The first 4 customers will wait 0 seconds.
Next 4 will wait an average of 3 minutes.
Next 4 will wait an average of 6 minutes.
And so on.
Last customer in line could wait 18 minutes.

Deferred Work Formula
Volume / (Response Time / Average Handling Time) = Agents

Organizing your team’s schedules

Example:
Friday morning, 10:00 – 10:30:
10 + 1 (historically absent) + 2 (typically on break at this time) = 13
13/10 = 1.3 rostered staff factor (30% needed above base staff)

Schedule Alternatives

Flexible activity
Stagger shifts
Adjust breaks, lunches, and meetings
Part-timers
Use hiring to your advantage

Three Secrets for Great Results

Collaborate with employees.
Model different scenarios.
Clarify values.

Managing Queues in Real-Time

Monitoring customer queues

The number of customers in the queue is the most sensitive real-time information available.

Indicators:

Customers in queue
Longest current wait
Service level or Average Wait Time

Recommendation

Harness technology.
Provide expected wait times to customers.
Define how you’ll respond to real-time data.

Abandonment
The number of customers who leave before they get help.

Does having no abandonment mean that wait times are fine?
No, it should be supporting information only. Some customers may wait extra long time to receive service and know that they get a busy signal if calling later.

Establishing an escalation plan

Tier one: routine, common-sense adjustments
Tier two: more involved alternatives

Recommendations

Collaborate with your team.
Look back to assess effectiveness.

Empowering your team

Empowered agents have the tools, know-hour, and confidence to take action. Give agents clear standards and guidance.

What’s the right thing to do?
What actions would resolve the problem?
What decisions align with the mission?

Managing perceptions when capacity is limited

Four Things To Consider

Empower customers with information.
Provide options. (Receiving a callback without losing their position in the queue)
Improve the waiting experience.
Use messaging during the wait.

Three Recommendations

Observe others.
Listen to customers.
Be intentional.

Building a Stronger Approach

A cultural commitment

Educate your team on their importance. Empower your employees.

The “power of one”

One person makes a huge difference. The Erlang-C formula and table demonstrate the substantial impact of one person being added to the queue.

Service level and quality

Service level and quality eventually become complimentary.

Ten tips for better queue management

Scale resources.
Leverage technology.
Improve self-service.
Communicate queue conditions.
Educate others.
Manage internal queues.
Pool resources.
Cross-train employees.
Shape your customer access strategy.
Improve traffic flow (for in-person queues).

Leading-edge queue management

Bold thinking
Inventory gaps

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