Under the influence of the global pandemic, direct transaction and face-to-face interaction have been prohibited, and potentially everything has been going through the journey of digitalization. From fighting over the limited supply of life-saving masks to ordering groceries online or just some random clothes shopping, chances are you have across some sort of online queuing system since 2020. Believed in the power of surging virtual waiting rooms, we feature a product named Queue-it – the first-ever virtual waiting room solution around the globe.
Before we move on to the pitching part of the product itself, allow us to justify the importance of having a virtual waiting room in every e-commerce system, starting with the story of Tap & Go.
Consumption Voucher Scheme – a silver lining to boost up the number of loyal users
One of the talks of the town in the last few months has to be the Consumption Voucher Scheme. Large crowds (basically the entire city) flocking to redeem the consumption e-vouchers and going on the spending spree. After all, retail therapy always makes one happy, especially in the doom and gloom fueled by COVID-19. Telecommunications giant HKT has quickly taken the advantage of the HKD$36 billion initiative, and further promoted its Tap & Go digital wallet as one of the four privileged collection channels.
Being the first-of-its-kind e-wallet launched locally back in 2015, Tap & Go has been popping all over with the incorporation of both Mastercard and UnionPay technology when it first debuted. Together with its committed influencer marketing efforts, the product was a big wow to the market back then. Regretfully, the effect has not been sustainable and it is still yet to be a leading payment channel in town. Being selected as one of the destinated providers supporting the Consumption Voucher Scheme, it was expected to be a moment of rebirth and a major win to re-tap into the local fintech landscape for the contactless card. But things, as usual, do not always go the way you wish.
Registration Failure
With the whole city rushing in to sign up for the card, no matter how much money did the company put into advertising the efficiency of the card registration process, the landing page and app went down before the official starting date of the scheme registration. Users reported that there has been a 20-minute to hours of waiting time, just to queue and get into the app. Not to mention how the painful app/web crash followed by, has become a major source of irritation for potential customers.
Cannot receive the vouchers even if registered
Think that the matter could be cleared up after the server struggles through registrations? Not really.
Earlier this month in the 1st phase of the voucher handout, shoppers have again irked over the e-payment system. Some users found out that they were unable to get the released $2000 through the app as expected. Some customers, on the other hand, experienced erroneous deductions of funds from their Tap & Go accounts in connection with the usage of Consumption Vouchers. Going from bad to worse, the customers came together in social media groups and forums with rage since the problem has been longing for quite a while. The online community began the glitching with Tap & Go and questioned the usability and stability of the server itself.
With the add-on effects of the customer service hotline being unreachable because of the flooding complaints, the reborn fantasy has utterly turned into a public relations nightmare instead. Attempting to wrap up the entire crisis, the Tap & Go team apologized for the incident on the evening of August 3, and promised to arrange refunds and follow-up actions accordingly within one week after thorough communication with the server service provider, Fiserv.
Tap & Go is a fresh example of giving a lark to catch the kite. Nowadays with the surging trend of e-commerce, an orderly and integrated queuing system has become foremost important to ensure a seamless shopping experience and ultimately, maximize revenue.
We understand the fact that every website/app has its limit. But as a group of tech accelerators, we also have faith in constant advancement in tech solutions- this is where Queue-it comes into the game.
How Queue-it works
The logic behind is rather simple: if the website/app traffic is not spiking, your clients would not be seeing the virtual waiting room at all. But for business-critical days when the number of end-users overwhelms your maximum threshold, Queue-it is there to help.
Excess users would be redirected to a branded virtual waiting room on a first-come-first-served basis. Once the space is opened up again, visitors are then throttled back to your server to continue with their purchases. This gives you control over sudden traffic peaks and safeguards your website/app from crashing, keeping your online presence to perform its best below its breaking point.
Why should your e-commerce business turn to Queue-it
When done well, a virtual waiting room is a great way to prevent websites/apps from peak-related crashes or slowdowns. Queue-it’s system supports various e-commerce infrastructures including AWS, Salesforce and so much more without making changes to their original servers. By transferring exceeding shoppers to Queue-it’s waiting room, eager customers are encouraged to clear out their shopping carts, free from failures.
Leveraging Queue-it’s feature-rich platform, you could easily deliver your brand’s visual identity with branded content like links, videos, and promotional texts embedded in the waiting room. Turn the virtual waiting room into a customized showroom with all your greatest product highlights. The iconic Queue Man progress bar also gives a transparent picture of the waiting information like wait time estimation and one’s position in the queue, mimicking a moving line in real-life scenarios. If you wish, you may even include real-time communication elements in the waiting pane, like messaging and memos, to keep the crowd pleasingly informed. In fact, consumers may even close their browser, come back to the site, and keep the same number in line.
A renowned service provider in the industry
Since its launch in 2010, Queue-it’s virtual waiting room solution has been implemented on a variety of sites, ranging from the public sector, online retailers, ticketing businesses and education providers.
In the aspect of the health sector, the team has reached out to The Tokyo Metropolitan Government in regards to its suspended vaccination booking site. As you could imagine, the mean demand for that particular server has been sky-high. At the end of April, they had around 300,000 medical professionals try to access the landing page on the first day of registration alone. Within just 2-3 days, the team incorporated the virtual waiting room into the website as an effective solution.
The virtual waiting room is also a major success in terms of online retail, proven by the case of Harvey Nichols. The prestigious British department store struggled with customer dissatisfaction with an exclusive launch of the Fenty Beauty cosmetics line curated by Rihanna. The event immediately brought a massive level of traffic with hundreds and thousands of beauty enthusiasts and fans. Harvey Nichols sought after Queue-it’s solution to ensure a smooth and undisturbed customer experience. The luxurious brand was able to offload 8000 exceeding visitors at a time to the waiting room. Moving forward, they continued to team up with Queue-it for Black Friday sales afterward.
If you are looking for a helping hand in handling a big end-user volume, or ways to boost your online sales with a better UX experience, Contact Us to learn more about the essence of incorporating a virtual waiting room with Queue-It.
