In June luxury outlet shopping centre, Bicester Village in Oxfordshire, England, announced a number new shopping protocols designed to keep customers and staff safe, including asking all partner brands within the complex to use a virtual queuing app to enable social distancing in stores. Will this approach become the new norm?
Bicester Village, a luxury outlet shopping centre on the outskirts of Bicester in Oxfordshire, has supplied many of the 160 brands within the centre – including Gucci, Burberry, Prada, Valentino and Dolce & Gabbana – with a virtual queuing system to manage footfall traffic outside stores.
And while the concept of a digital queuing system is straight-forward – it allows customers to queue remotely by assigning them a position in the queue and notifying them when it’s their turn – many retailers within the shopping centre have quickly realised that they require additional functionalities to create more engaging and seamless customer journeys.
A quality queuing system will have the following functionalities:
- The ability for customers to enter queues remotely through a number of channels, including SMS and QR code.
- Highly intelligent and carefully calculated wait-time estimates.
- Queue position numbers with real-time tracking.
- Regular notification and reminder messages.
- Full customisation of branding and the ability to ask targeted questions.
- Post-visit follow-up capabilities.
Many other malls and shopping centres throughout the country (and world) are starting to require retailers to invest in more practical approaches to crowd-control rather than simply asking customers to queue up outside their stores. And with winter and the holiday season fast-approaching, now is the time for retailers to act.
Find out more about queue management software
A number of retailers at Bicester Village have been in contact with Qudini to help them reach their Q4 targets and create an engaging and safe customer experience.
Our app is used by some of the world’s biggest brands. As well as providing a brilliant customer journey, here are some of the many ways Qudini’s Queue Management System stands out in the market:
1) State-of-the-art security
Capturing and managing customer data such as names and contact details requires a heightened level of security. As an enterprise centric platform, we’re ISO27001 and GDPR compliant.
2) Integrates with appointment booking
As well as managing the customers in your queue, if you provide any sort of in-store service, you’ll also need the functionality to manage customers with appointments.
Qudini’s queuing app is fully integrated with our appointment booking functionality, which a number of other brands in Bicester Village are also deploying with us as part of their Q4 strategy.
Find out more about Qudini’s appointment booking software
3) Occupancy tracking functionality
As well as creating a smooth and engaging customer journey, a queue app helps to ensure social distancing in-store by limiting the number of customers inside. That’s why it’s vital that queuing systems come with occupancy tracking capabilities.
Qudini’s queuing system is fully integrated with footfall counters, allowing retailers to manage and monitor occupancy within their stores.
Read more about Qudini’s occupancy tracking feature
4) Multiple devices and mobile operating systems
To create a truly contactless and engaging customer journey, queuing software needs to be mobile-friendly as most customers will be using their phones to check-in to queues and follow their progress in the queue.
Qudini’s platform has been custom-built for both IOS and Android, and performs perfectly on tablet and mobile devices. This ensures a brilliant journey for your customers and creates a seamless experience for your staff.
5) Analytics dashboards
We offer the most extensive retail focussed analytics dashboards suite in the market, capturing 100 new data points on a single customer’s experience, including:
- Who visits your stores and why.
- Which channels they used.
- What was their experience like.
- Where they came from.
- If they are already loyal customers.
- Their demographic information.
- Who is cancelling or walking out.
- Who served them and how long it took.
- What their specific feedback was.
- Factoring public data like the weather into the equation.
- Data from your third party tools and their correlation to customer activities.
- And much more…
Find out more about Qudini’s dashboards here
6) Global rollout
We may be in the middle of a global pandemic, but creating a seamless and engaging experience across your store portfolio is still important.
Our platform works in multiple languages and timezones to support your global store estate, meaning you can roll our out-of-the-box software out to new stores and regions at pace.
Learn more about Qudini’s Queue Management Software
For a tailored demo, complete the form below, or email Raj@qudini.com
