Research shows that queuing creates negative feelings in people, such as stress and irritation, and many people leave stores with long or unstructured queues. A lot of unnecessary time is spent standing and waiting or walking around looking for a free assistant on the shop floor.
It is becoming increasingly important for stores to create a good customer flow, have efficient staff and create opportunities for additional sales. With Flowby's digital queuing system, the customer can move freely in the store, carry out other errands or fill their basket while waiting for their turn and at all times have full control of their queue place on their mobile phone.
This is how Flowby's digital queue works:
1. The customer scans a QR code with their mobile camera and is placed in a queue.
2. During the time in the queue, the customer carries out other errands.
3. When it is the customer's turn, a notification is sent and the customer goes to the checkout or service point to get help.
The store easily administers the queue via a browser and has full control over how many people are queuing for the various departments and how long they have been waiting.
Flowby is a web-based interface that can be run on existing hardware such as computers, displays and mobile devices. We believe that it is unnecessary both from an investment and environmental perspective to add additional units or to manage paper queue tickets.
Flowby has had paying customers since the summer of 2021 and today works with some of the largest retail chains in Sweden. Unlike its competitors, Flowby is completely transparent with its pricing and has no set-up cost or commitment period. Flowby's customers are customers because they are offered the best solution.
Flowby is a fast-moving tech company with the goal of becoming a world leader in digital queuing and service.
Do you think the dragons in Draknästet want to invest in Flowby? Come in and watch SVT on October 5th and you'll see!
THANKS to the dragons Shervin Razani, Jonas Tellander, Sara Wimmercranz, and Lena Apler. And thanks to Josef Fallesen who tipped us off.
/Anna Leijon, Susanne Tedsjö and Joakim Lustig
*Spoiler alert: Anna was heavily pregnant and gave birth to her first child a day after the recording.*
One of the most important parts of the customer flow is how you reach the customers who need help and how you manage the queue. The fact that customers need to queue is usually not the problem, but it is usually the queue management itself that is the challenge.
Queuing is something that affects many people, so much so that some even show stress symptoms such as heart palpitations during unclear and confusing queues. A bad queuing experience can lead to customer dissatisfaction, less sales and ineffective staff. The customers then go to a competitor instead.
Good queue management instead has a big impact on the staff's efficiency. Having no queue formation at all means that the store has too many staff and a long queue instead means that there are too few staff.
If you have an eye on these parts and streamline how you help customers on the "floor" and manage the queue, it leads to increased customer satisfaction, more efficient staff and increased sales.
Where do the stops in the customer flow most often occur? Let's go through two different scenarios with three different solutions.
The customer needs help outside the store.
The customer is well-read and has written a shopping list. Once in place at the department in question, there are many different variants to choose from and the customer needs help.
1. Solution without a queue system
The customer goes out the main entrance to look for someone to ask. The customer sees one of the staff some distance away and goes there, but is told that he is not the right person and is directed to the counter of the department in question. The customer goes there, but there is no one there to ask. The customer enters the next aisle and there is one of the staff helping another customer. Our customer stands next to it at a small distance and waits until the staff becomes free.
2. Solution with traditional paper queue systems
The customer goes out the main entrance to look for someone to ask. The customer sees that there are queue cards at the information counter. The customer takes a physical queue slip and stands at the counter waiting for someone from the staff to come. However, the staff is unpacking goods a little further down the department and has no knowledge that there is a customer waiting in line to get help.
3. Solution with Flowby's digital queue system
In several places in the department there is a QR code to scan if you need help. The customer scans the code with their mobile phone and is placed in a digital queue. The customer sees his place in the queue and how many people are ahead. During the time in the queue, the customer can move around the store in peace and quiet, knowing that a notification will be sent when it is the customer's turn to get help. The staff receives a notification and sees on their computer screen or mobile that there is a person in the queue in department X and can go there to help the customer directly.
The customer has ordered an item online with collection in store.
The customer has shopped online and chosen to collect in store. Since everything is paid for and ready, the expectation from the customer is that the delivery will take place quickly and smoothly.
1. Solution without a queue system
Once there, the customer discovers that the queue for pick up in store is the same as for the check out and it is quite long. The customer stands in line and waits his turn.
2. Solution with traditional paper queue systems
The customer takes a queuing slip to the service department, which handles both online pick-up and service & return. The customer stands in a corner and waits his turn.
3. Solution with Flowby's digital queue system
The customer scans a QR code and selects the "Pick up in store" queue.
The customer enters their order number for a smoother pick-up. The customer is now placed in a mobile queue and has full control of how many people are ahead of them in the queue. Instead of just standing in a corner and waiting, the customer walks around the store and picks up goods that might not otherwise be bought. The staff can see that there is a customer in the pick up in store queue and can choose to prioritize it in the queue. At the warehouse, there is also a computer screen that shows all the order numbers that are in the queue for collection so that the staff can pick up the order even before it is the customer's turn.
Our customers testify to increased customer satisfaction, increased sales and more efficient staff.
You test Flowby free of charge for one month and thereafter the price is SEK 250 per queue per month.
Flowby was contacted by angry queuers who wanted them to address the situation. The founders, Anna and Susanne, had already tried to get hold of the police to alert them to their solution, but in vain. They then went out to Arlanda on an early Tuesday morning in June and talked to the people in the queue there.
It turned out that everyone on site would prefer a mobile queuing system to a physical one.
- "We experienced a great deal of frustration among the queuers we spoke to out at Arlanda. It is natural - no one wants to stand in a queue and just wait. We have a solution to this problem and we hope that the Police and other service institutions in society realize that it's completely unnecessary to expose your visitors to physical queues. It's sad when we've developed a solution to a problem that consumers are clamoring for, but that decision-makers ignore," says Anna Leijon, CPO at Flowby.
Flowby is already used successfully today at, for example, Mediamarkt, HiFi Klubben, Dormy, Decathlon and many other places where there are also frequent queues, especially during certain times.
- "Despite both societal and technological development having made enormous progress in recent decades, the way we queue has stood still. We don't think we should have to physically queue in 2022 and decided to do something about it. There are also other benefits for stores and service facilities that introduce our system because customers look at other goods and buy more instead of standing still in a queue. Everyone wins from that!", says Susanne Tedsjö, CEO at Flowby.
Flowby's hypothesis is that no modern person will want to physically queue in 2022. Therefore, they decided to do something about it and started building their current solution about a year ago. They are already available at eight different stores and service facilities.
Now it is up to the Police, other shops and service establishments to heed the consumers' wish to no longer have to queue physically. To be continued.
The police's own official announcement at their website.
]]>