Higher education is a critical period of development in students' lives. It is a time where students grow into young adults capable of entering the workforce, a pivotal transformation that can shape the next fifty years of their lives. Students have options when selecting which college or university to attend, and providing them with the best possible experience is a vital part of attracting potential students and student retention.
Navigating the bureaucracy of higher education can be difficult. Meetings with college advisors and staff that should be 15-20 minute engagements can wind up taking hours due to long queues and wait times. The average college student is typically quite busy, with a lot on their plate, and standing in long lines is an experience that, if recurring, can lead to disenfranchised students.
For 4-year colleges, prioritizing the student experience is a long-term driver of success. At the end of the day, students are customers. It is expected that there will be some customer turnover, but keeping the rate manageable is important. According to the Princeton Review, at least one in three students will transfer institutions at least once before graduation. One of the best ways for administrators to keep students happy is to invest in improving the critical issues they're concerned with.
At several different points of contact, students end up standing in long lines, wasting valuable hours of their day. Whether it is for counseling or registrar offices, retail areas, health centers, or any other high-traffic area on campus, students find themselves waiting in long physical queues that are frustrating and no longer necessary.
While a long, drawn-out queue seems like a cost of business, there are other options available for colleges and universities to significantly streamline the process. Virtual queue management is an innovation that is being implemented in colleges, government offices, medical businesses, and other industries around the world, and it has a major role to play in the future of education.
The virtual queue process completely changes how people wait in line, drastically improving the customer experience. Virtual queues allow customers to check-in from any location on their phone, see wait times, and communicate with staff members without the need for in-person interaction. It gives customers the ability to get the most out of their time and reduces the confusion of waiting in a long, unexplained line.
For colleges, virtual queues will effectively streamline your customer flow. They’ll make your day-to-day much simpler by increasing the efficiency of the line. Customers will know their wait times in advance, meaning businesses will get to deal wit3h less frustrated clients. As well, college staff will have an enhanced sense of the number of students waiting for them and be able to communicate key messages to individuals or the entire lineup.
When it comes to virtual queuing, the name to know is QLess. QLess is an all-in-one queue management software that helps businesses across industries more effectively accommodate customers, reduce wait times and line frustration, and streamline operations for a higher functioning business.
Let's explore the advantages virtual queuing offers in the higher education industry and how it can help colleges and universities improve their processes and change the customer experience.
For a successful higher ed institution, the student experience should be paramount. But giving your current students the best possible experience when interacting with in-person parts of the campus is not an easy thing. Many schools tend to have high student populations and lack the staff, or the organizing technology to handle the high-volume customer flows that some areas of the campus will face. This leaves students trying to navigate a congested bureaucracy with long wait times that can leave them feeling bitter.
The student experience is a comprehensive thing. While the goal of higher education is to educate and develop, student expectations go far beyond lectures in the current era. Students want to feel heard, they want their pain points addressed, and they want a technology-oriented experience that aligns with their digital tendencies. According to Review42, 98% of Gen Z in America, the primary college-aged generation, own a smartphone. Digitalization and virtual solutions are key ways to appeal to them.
Virtual queuing systems align with students' desire to utilize technology to improve their overall experience. Virtual queuing systems can drastically reduce the wait times your students face at campus bookstores, advisement appointments, health centers, and more. According to QLess, the use of QLess’ virtual queue management software can increase student satisfaction by 75% and decrease long lines and wait times by 97%.
The benefit of improving the student experience is obvious for universities and colleges. The happier students are, the more likely they will stick around at the school and share their enjoyment on social media or through word-of-mouth marketing. Prioritizing the customer experience is always a good idea for any business. According to Forbes, there is an 80% growth in revenue for companies that focus on the customer experience compared to ones that don’t.
How exactly does a virtual queue improve the customer's time spent waiting in line? It is simple. Waiting in line is known to be a stressful and arduous experience. There is a relatively expansive field of psychology that explores the line waiting process, and some of the findings show the advantages virtual queues have.
According to a study by David Maister, one of the leading queue psychologists, there are common pain points to waiting in line, many of which are fixed with a virtual queue. For example, unknown wait times feel longer than known, finite wait times. Virtual queues show wait times, helping customers have a clearer sense of what’s going on. This reduces anxiety, which helps with another one of Maister’s key takeaways: anxiety makes lines feel longer. By reducing customers' wait times, providing them with open communication about their wait times, and taking the stress out of the queue process, the student experience is drastically improved.
Queue management educational software, such as QLess, is an important feature that can help universities and colleges provide a better experience for their students throughout the campus. Taking the necessary steps to provide the best possible process for your lines will show students the school is dedicated to fixing the problems that ail the students, boosting customer loyalty.
There are many different services universities provide. The requirements for waiting in line and scheduling appointments for them will be different for each of them. Having a line system that isn’t customizable to the needs of each office doesn’t make sense in a university and college setting. When using a queue management software solution, making sure it can accommodate the varying demands of your operation is an important consideration. Counseling offices, the admissions office, and other departments are all going to have different needs.
QLess is a queue management software that allows schools to segment and categorize students to better help them. For example, schools can organize their students into categories like "new students" to accommodate all the incoming freshmen or transfers that will need a lot more guidance and appointments in the first few weeks.
If students are categorized, the experience can be better customized to the individual needs of each student and department. Students can be sorted based on priority, giving lines and appointment scheduling a much more significant structure. With things like a virtual queue enrollment, which could be segmented based on different criteria, such as credits taken and priority, the line can have a more organized and natural flow that makes employees' like advisors and administrators' jobs much more manageable.
It is never going to be one-size-fits-all in a university setting. The typical campus is too diverse and dynamic to have any solution that cannot be customized. There are a variety of students who may need accommodations, such as special education students or students with disabilities. Knowing ahead of appointment time that students might need additional assistance is a great way to be prepared to help all communities within the student population.
Queue management software makes the line much more personal, providing critical information to staff that will allow them to customize the experience. A more customized process is a more organized one, improving a school's capacity to take on customers. This leads to a higher number of students being accommodated within the way that best fits them.
A virtual queue helps with customer assignments, putting students in the right place at the right time. This leads to a faster and more effective process across the board and a higher capacity to handle students. The ability of a virtual solution to adapt to the diverse needs of your school should be a defining factor in the selection process, and QLess can be customized to fit the various requirements of academic offices and the students they work with.
The goal of any administrative system is efficiency. The ability to handle a high volume of customers with a high rate of customer satisfaction sets apart a good administrative process from a bad one. Many university systems fall short in this area, with lots of red tape, bureaucracy, and waiting time for students, making it more difficult on staff. What the virtual queue opportunity provides is a way to create a much more straightforward and effective system.
What sets virtual queues apart isn’t just the ability to see where specific students and types of students are in the queue process. The ability to communicate with customers and mine these virtual solutions for critical information is also a unique advantage that they provide.
For businesses, the ability to communicate effectively with customers is extremely important. This is all the more important with schools, where the relationship with students is more intimate than the typical business-customer relationship. According to Project.co, 96% of people feel the businesses they deal with could improve in terms of communication. But communication has changed drastically, and finding the right ways to communicate with the students you are dealing with is essential.
The conventional customer communication methods such as phone calls might no longer be preferred by the primary customers universities will be dealing with. According to data from Nextiva, 57% of customers would rather contact businesses through digital media than use voice-based customer support.
QLess offers schools a way to communicate effectively with students through a two-way digital media chat feature. They can send custom messages to individual clients, receive important updates, or broadcast messages to the entire group of students within a queue. In turn, students can message staff, ask questions, and have an increased presence in the process. This type of two-way communication will go a long way towards improving the line experience while also providing administrators with updates that can improve how their system operates.
There is also a lot that administrators and staff can learn about their business from a virtual queuing system like QLess. These systems track different aspects of your line process, such as wait times, the number of virtual customers accommodated, and more. This can help give schools key business intelligence data that can help them improve their distribution time.
The more you know about how your school's operations are working, the better you can improve them. Being guided by data is a meaningful way to successfully improve processes, and QLess allows schools to quantify something that would’ve been very difficult to quantify in the past. QLess tracks a vast variety of metrics that will show you the areas of strength and weakness for each of your academic offices. These metrics include average wait time, transaction time, no-show percentage, customers served, and more.
This data helps schools create more intelligent operations by identifying the flaws of their systems in place. Business intelligence is a core part of how a school or company can learn and grow. According to a Statista survey, 79% of businesses agree that data is an essential part of their strategy. A Deloitte study showed that 84% of companies surveyed found that analytics improved their competitive position, with 25% saying it significantly improved.
QLess and virtual queue software open up communication with students and provide schools with crucial data that can show them what is working in their academic offices and what isn't. Seeing the difference across departments will also help schools identify the specific areas that are not providing students with the quality of help they deserve. With better communication with students and high-quality data, schools can create a much more efficient administrative system.
Universities have had to undergo some major changes since the beginning of 2020 due to COVID-19. When the pandemic struck North America midway through the spring semester of 2020, campuses emptied. It took well over a year for them to return to in-person college classes, and in many parts of the continent, they still haven't fully. The average campus is still not the same as it was, and administrators have both a legal and moral responsibility to do what they can to accommodate students and staff still concerned about the pandemic and social distancing in schools.
There are likely many students on every campus still reeling from the shock and fear of the pandemic. It was an isolating time for students, who were pulled away from their education and forced to adjust on the fly. In return to campus, many students were fearful, but many others were careless, and it led to significant outbreaks at several schools. A New York Times report showed that Clemson University, Pennsylvania State, and the University of Wisconsin each had over 5,000 cases.
This isn't just a public relations nightmare for universities, it is a significant legal and health hazard, and it marks a complete failure to protect students. The fact is, students want their schools to take public health measures to protect them from COVID. According to an Axios poll, 73% of students support a vaccine mandate for students to be on campus, while a TimelyMD survey found 87% of students were in favor of a mask mandate.
Students want schools to take the necessary steps to protect them from campus outbreaks. In a traditional standby queue in areas like a health or student center, students will be in close range of each other in an indoor environment even when socially distanced. Indoor mask requirements help with this, but it can still be an anxiety-inducing experience for students to be in a congested indoor environment with many other people.
QLess and virtual queuing take the anxiety out of this situation while greatly improving schools' daily distribution times. Students no longer need to wait at an in-person line for service with QLess. They can check-in to the queue from wherever they are, watch the display boards on their devices, wait until they are called for their scheduled appointment, and head to the front line. This service makes campus buildings significantly more COVID-safe, which is something students and staff are sure to appreciate.
QLess and virtual queuing reduce the need for schools to have physical lines. At a time where universities and colleges are still having to deal with the ripple effects of a year that took a significant toll on students' mental health, taking necessary extra steps to ease students' minds is important. The typical student wants their higher education institutions to be proactive in the measures they take to prevent an outbreak and socially distance the campus. QLess is a perfect way to do that.
The use of virtual queue management systems on campus is something schools across the country are starting to embrace. In both America and Canada, higher education institutions like York University, Santa Monica College, and the University of British Columbia have implemented QLess to improve their operations. Some institutions with massive student populations have managed to see the positive difference QLess can make in helping remove congestion and create smarter operations.
Let's take a quick look at two institutions utilizing QLess to streamline their appointment and queue processes. Learn more about Texas A&M University's queue management system and Southern Alberta Institute of Technology's call-back queue system.
Texas A&M is a massive sprawl of a campus, the biggest in the state. It has a student population nearing 70,000. It is a busy, populated school home to an enormous student body, and it can be confusing to navigate this for a new student. Luckily, Texas A&M has implemented QLess to help better manage a rising student population. Texas A&M’s primary goal was to implement QLess to help streamline in-person and on-the-phone advisement.
Students were previously faced with hours-long waits for advisement meetings, eating a big chunk out of their day. The results of QLess have been promising at this school. Students can now wait in virtual queues, stay on top of their spot in line, and go about their day until appointment. "With QLess, we've found efficiencies and ways to become more effective in our offices,” said Nicholas Kilmer, Assistant Director of the Money Education Center. “Transitions are never easy; I can definitely say that on the other end of this transition, we're immensely better off."
The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology is a polytechnic institution with a large student body of over 50,000 full and part-time students. With multiple campuses located in Calgary, Alberta, one of Canada's biggest cities, it is a busy school with many different student demands. The academic Office of the Registrar faced a strenuous workload, experiencing 100-150 calls a day from students. This got worse when the pandemic hit, with calls from students and prospective students increasing 47%, and the staff was increasingly fighting uphill to satisfy student demands. To combat this, they integrated with the QLess virtual callback systems.
The QLess virtual callback queue had an immediate impact on lightening staff’s workload and automatically filtering calls, so staff only received the calls that were relevant to their specific specialization. “The experience has been fantastic,” said Scott Robinson, Associate Registrar. “The staff loves it, and the students are no longer complaining about the length of the wait times." The pandemic had a significant impact on schools' ability to interact with students and cater to their needs. Digital solutions like QLess helped institutes asynchronously manage the desires of their student body.
The student experience is dependent on the institution that students attend. Every school needs to have students to function, but schools place varying levels of emphasis on catering campus life to the desires of the students that populate their halls. The modern student is tech-savvy and wants the institution they attend to reflect their interest in technology. Digital solutions that improve the day-to-day experience of interacting with university departments are fundamental to ensuring student satisfaction.
QLess, and virtual queuing overall, are game-changers for universities and colleges. They help schools create more intelligent operations informed by data that reduce the need to wait in physical student lines. They create a mutually beneficial, more effective way to handle appointments, which is essential for schools with large student bodies with conflicting demands. Both staff and students can see the benefits of integration.
QLess is customizable and tailored to higher education institutes' varying needs. It opens better communication with students and provides pivotal insights that can shape how processes are conducted. QLess also dramatically improves the student experience of waiting in line and is perfect for the socially distanced campus.
QLess is a virtual resource that modernizes departments and frees time up for staff and students, helping both optimize their day-to-day. If your higher education institute is looking to transform your operations to give students and administrators the best experience possible, QLess and virtual queue management is the game-changing solution you're looking for.
To see first-hand what QLess can do for your higher education institute, contact us today to schedule a demo.
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University students attend higher education institutions with the hopes of expanding their minds and preparing for their future. Unfortunately, all too often they got lost in a system that doesn't cater to individual student experience. Instead of feeling that the administration exists for the students, attendees quickly realize that they must conform to the needs of administrators in order to be successful. Scheduling appointments, registering for classes, even asking advisors for help all become nightmarish experiences filled with long lines, tired and impatient staff, and inadequate information.
Oftentimes, students will enter university fresh-faced, excited, and ready for success. Over time, however, ineffective university resources begin to take their toll. When simple tasks like registering for classes or dealing with financial aid eat up so much of their time, their desire to continue with their education slowly decreases. Students struggle to gain support from on-campus systems, which explains why consistently negative experiences with campus resources are one of the main sources of attrition; unfortunately, universities struggle to increase student satisfaction with limited resources. While student experience often ranks as a top priority for administrators, improving on-campus systems seems like an insurmountable task. A large student population means long lines--there doesn't seem to be a way around the problem. Fortunately, online appointment booking tools and an effective scheduling application both provide a modern solution to a large problem in higher education.
By using an electronic scheduling application like the one from QLess, academic institutions solve the problem of impatient students before it starts. Instead of expecting students to show up, wait in a line, and hope for the best, scheduling applications allow students to book an appointment ahead of time, eliminating the need for physical queues. In an age of ever-evolving technology, an electronic solution like a scheduling application can simultaneously push academic institutions into the modern age and improve the student experience.
Perhaps the most instantaneous result of an effective scheduling application is the elimination of physical lines, without an electronic tool, students often run into long lines at every on-campus location. While long queues are frustrating at any juncture, they're particularly irritating during key points in the year. When students struggle to register for class, change programs, or ask advice about their courses due to long lines, attrition begins to develop. Instead of forcing long queues that lead to general frustration and discontent, a scheduling application assigns students a specific time with which they can complete their necessary necessary business. When each student knows the time and date they can sign up for new courses, registering for classes becomes a breeze. Even signing up to see an advisor becomes a stress-free task--each person is assigned an appointment time, eliminating the pressure on both the student and the administrator. By bypassing lines and allowing individuals to address their issues at a specified time, students no longer waste their time waiting for help. They gain more time to study, hang out with friends, or even just relax, all of which will contribute to higher student satisfaction.
While a scheduling application gives students more free time, it also tailors the university experience to a new generation. Current and incoming university students have grown up with technology. They're well-versed in mobile applications, and they actually prefer to handle most of their business electronically. Academic institutions, like any business, attract the most customers when they know their audience and tailor their services accordingly, for a mobile generation, mobile scheduling applications should be the norm.
The QLess scheduling application not only provides a mobile platform for students to access information from anywhere, it also sends text alerts to inform students of their appointment times. By creating a smartphone-friendly design, this scheduling application speaks to a main tenet of a new generation--consistent and reliable mobile communication. It ensures that students have simplified access to important academic information, and it lessens the possibility that they'll forget their appointment time and fail to show up.
While human error always stands as a distinct possibility, electronic scheduling applications allow students to feel comfortable an at-ease in their academic environments. By using technology they are already experts in, academic institutions create easy communication and connections between administrators and students. Students who feel comfortable in their academic environment are more likely to complete their university education, rather than cave to the pressures of campus life.
When students are constantly filtered into long lines and told to wait their turn, the personal element of higher education disappears. Students want to feel like their individual needs have significance, especially in an institution with the social weight of a college or university, many students accrue heavy debt in order to gain their degree. For instance, the desire to feel like their individual experience matters isn't misplaced. Difficulty gaining access to basic information and meeting essential needs for the future of their education is understandably frustrating.
Although electronic scheduling applications simply increase the organization and staff productivity on college campuses, they also allow each student to feel like they're receiving personalized attention. A specific appointment time communicates that each individual is important enough to receive focused attention, in which only their specific questions and needs matter. Simple as it may sound, a scheduling application can make all the difference in creating what feels like an individualized learning environment, despite the fact that each student receives the same time and attention to discuss their needs.
If students have a problem with campus systems, they want to make their opinions known; unfortunately, when it's difficult to even get a meeting in the first place, students don't feel that their concerns are being heard. Even if every individual problem can't be addressed immediately, allowing students to provide feedback on their experience can greatly improve student satisfaction with on-campus life. University processes may not change immediately, but allowing students to feel heard and appreciated subtly communicates that their opinion matters.
A scheduling application allows students the opportunity to address their concerns, without eating up the essential time of administrators. Instead of sitting in an office and listing off every complaint, students can fill out electronic surveys, effectively and quickly communicating the elements of the campus system that don't work for them. Feedback provides a two-fold opportunity for growth within the university. First, administrators hear student concerns quickly and easily, allowing them to adjust future processes to fix the most common problems. Second, students get their frustrations off their chest, lessening their irritation and providing hope that things will change in the future. A scheduling application allows universities to listen and react to the needs of their students, without decreasing the productivity of their staff. Students have a hand in the improvement of their education, and it doesn't come at a cost to either students or administrators.
Academic institutions are designed to push students towards graduation; unfortunately, the decision to leave university altogether is a common one. While each individual leaves their academic institution for their own reasons, dissatisfaction with campus resources often appears as one of the major sources behind drop-outs. Although it sounds like a no-brainer, it's worth stating that students who are satisfied with their college experience are far more likely to stay in school and eventually graduate.
An effective scheduling application increases student satisfaction with on-campus services. Students express their concerns, gain personalized attention, and generally improve their ability to function within a university setting. With a scheduling application, graduation seems like an achievable goal, rather than a faraway possibility. When students believe that they can graduate, they're much more likely to work towards that goal. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the work in front of them, students see a clear path towards reaching their degree. Sometimes a little hope and a plan is all it takes. Happy students who believe they can graduate are more likely to graduate. A scheduling application brings that goal to the forefront of their minds, encouraging students to stay in school and earn their degrees.
Using a QLess scheduling application can change the life of university students everywhere. By eliminating physical lines and cutting down waiting times, scheduling applications allow students to feel like they're experiencing the personalized education they deserve; in addition, the mobile platform results in easy use for a tech-savvy generation and an opportunity for instantaneous feedback on campus services. Happy students are much more likely to stay in school, and to spread positivity about their academic institution, both online and in their personal life. If you want to increase your graduation rates, you need to learn more about QLess systems today. If you think our system might be the right fit for you, contact us now. We'll answer all your questions about QLess solutions. For more on improving campus operations and retention rates, read about how we've created college campuses without lines.
A well-developed workflow management system simplifies business processes at colleges and universities tremendously. As a business, these institutions provide education and degrees to their customers, also known as their students. Although colleges and universities stand as one of the most essential business organizations in young adult life, technological systems on-campus are often not on par with the fast-paced, technology-driven environment of the day. As incoming students reflect more expertise in current technology, so should their places of education. A workflow management system can change life at your university, both for your students and for your administrators.
In a school environment, multiple departments and individuals work together to contribute to the larger education machine. While some units identify prospective students, review applications, and send out offers of admissions, other divisions focus on registering current students for classes, organizing appointments with advisors, and assisting students with on-campus problems. Each of these individual systems work together to contribute to the overall goal of the organization--educating students and pushing them towards graduation, hence the need for workflow management.
A workflow management system simplifies all these processes. It's a software that automates some elements of your workflow management, taking the pressure off of your staff members and increasing the happiness of your students. By creating a streamlined network for all your most essential campus processes, a workflow management system allows each student to feel valued and supported, and each staff member to increase their productivity and efficiency.
A workflow management system creates an at-ease campus environment; not only that, it also brings your institution into the future. Easy-to-navigate education processes attract students, allowing your campus to continue running like the well-oiled machine that it is. Keeping your campus in the dark ages of technology not only hurts your students, it hurts your entire business. A high-tech workflow management system is a necessity your school can no longer do without.
Whether fair or unfair, students expect a lot of of their colleges and universities. An individualized learning experience is the standard, but most students would settle for consistent help from their on-campus systems. Unfortunately, high enrollment rates, a limited amount of resources, an overworked staff, and a surplus of tasks to complete often leave students feeling confused and overlooked. The more difficulty students experience navigating their education process, the more impatient they become. If enough time passes, the decision to leave school altogether becomes an easy one.
They're not getting the help they need to prepare for their future, why would they stay?
Consistently negative experiences with student services are one of the primary sources of attrition among college students. When students don't get the help or services they need, they drop out of classes, refrain from attending courses, or even leave the school altogether. As an organization that seeks to prepare young adults for their future, the current attrition rates are unacceptable.
Thankfully, a workflow management system presents a wonderful solution. By simplifying student access to on-campus services, a workflow management system decreases frustration and confusion among the student body. With a system like the one from QLess, you can decrease attrition rates by as much as 50%. A workflow management system improves student satisfaction and increases retention rates by allowing each student to feel like their needs are being met.
While a workflow management system improves the lives of your students, it also leads to increased productivity of your staff. A higher education environment already deals with a lack of resources, but a larger problem presents itself in an ineffective use of the resources that do exist. Oftentimes, staff stretch themselves far too thin trying to meet the needs of all students, despite the lack of time or effective organization systems to do so. Advisors overbook themselves attempting to sort out class schedules, and the Registrar and Admissions offices are overrun with impatient students. While it's undeniably unfair to the students, it's equally as frustrating for the staff.
Workflow management systems streamline campus processes and effectively allocate your staff resources. By eliminating the need for physical lines and relying on technology-based systems for organization, workflow management systems allow your administrators to gain a clear view of the tasks they need to be completed. Instead of surprise assignments and a frustrating amount of work for staff members, each administrator focuses on their assigned tasks, increasing their overall productivity. Not only does it result in increased happiness for your employees, it also ensures that all your resources are used effectively, lowering operational costs and saving money in the long run.
In our technologically advanced world, physical lines and in-person wait times just aren't practical anymore. Many of the problems that develop in university settings stem from a general lack of organization. Without a workflow management system, students are forced to go to an office, wait in line, and generally waste their time in an attempt to progress in their college experience. At the same time, administrators have little control over the time and attention needed to help each individual student. With a finite amount of resources and an infinite amount of potential questions, administrators are unable to prioritize and organize accordingly. With that lack of organization, both staff and students waste their time, and neither leaves feeling happy.
A workflow management system sorts through the chaos in your offices and eliminates the inconveniences of poor organization. Instead of arriving at an unspecified time in a physical office, students are assigned an appointment time with which they can ask all their questions. Interactive virtual queuing simplifies the process if your student does need unexpected help, and mobile reminders ensure that each student arrives at their specified appointment time. Most importantly, all these processes are completed inside the system, without assistance from your staff, allowing them to save their abilities to actually help students and bypass the errors that often accompany in-person scheduling.
An effective workflow management system changes your on-campus life immediately. Improved allocation of resources, clear processes for students, and increased organization all lead to instantaneous changes in your business systems. However, workflow management systems also provide information on what needs to change in the future. As a completely automated process, workflow management systems collect valuable information on your student and staff patterns. Student wait times, staff efficiency, student needs--all these and more can be found within your workflow management system.
With QLess systems specifically, we provide a real-time dashboard that consolidates data from multiple offices. At a glance, you have a general idea of what's happening in all areas of your campus. In addition, surveys within the system provide even more information about student satisfaction and necessary changes. Improving your business is a constantly evolving process, workflow management systems provide valuable insights to ensure that you can provide the best resources to your students for years to come.
We don't need to tell you that colleges and universities need students to stay afloat. Enrollment and retention present a major challenge for higher education institutions. That explains why many student administrators list student retention and student experience as their top priorities. While students may drop out when dissatisfied with their education, the ripple effect extends much farther than a single loss. Unhappy students spread information online and within their communities about the ineffectiveness of the school, giving other individuals the message that your institution isn't worth attending. While an individual drop-out can already present a hefty loss, consistent dropouts can negatively affect your application and enrollment rates over time.
An effective workflow management system leads to increased student happiness and higher retention rates over time, but it also allows your students to talk positively about your institution. Not only are you saving money on attrition, you're also building a strong reputation that will draw more students to your school over time. Reputation matters, both for the present and for the future. Workflow management systems support your ability to meet your student's needs, building a strong reputation as an institution that cares. With a reputation like that, who wouldn't want to apply?
Workflow management systems are a necessity in the modern age. It increases the happiness of your students and staff, leading to higher productivity and increased retention rates. In addition, it organizes your office with little effort from your staff and provides valuable insights into how you can improve your processes in the future. If you're ready to build a strong reputation, meet your students' needs, and save money for your business, you need to take the QLess approach. Learn more about how our electronic queuing system can enhance your education systems today. Please contact us for more information about our system.
Waiting rooms have been an essential aspect of hospitals, doctor's offices, and other healthcare facilities. But it doesn’t take much thought to realize the idea is counterintuitive. Crowding individuals with ailments in congested areas while they wait for assistance is not ideal. This was only further emphasized as a person-to-person airborne pandemic struck the world. Patient queue management software can be the solution to remedy this.This experience caused many healthcare professionals to have to re-evaluate their waiting procedures. There were concerns about pandemic transmission in waiting rooms and the overall healthcare experience. Amid virus anxiety, would patients sit with others even with a mask on?For a while, there were no true means of eliminating the waiting room. But in recent years, to address these concerns, many healthcare providers have been implementing patient queue software like QLess. This software aims to help reduce patients’ anxiety and create a waiting room experience that meets customers' expectations. The healthcare industry is crowded, and consumers abandon providers that can't meet their needs. According to Medical Economics, 69% of patients would switch providers for better services. Patient queue management software is an impactful solution that can de-congest waiting rooms and provide a safer, more patient-friendly experience. In a time where consumers easily switch businesses, the patient experience is vital. Below, we will break down what patient queue management is, how a virtual queue management system creates safer spaces, and why this is so important for patients and healthcare organizations.
Before we go any further, it is important to fully understand what patient queue management software is. The idea is relatively straightforward, and it has changed the healthcare sector. Why not have a virtual waiting room to manage customer flow instead of a physical one? Patients can access this virtual waiting room from their phones, computers, or on-site kiosks.With key features that enable customers to track the actual wait times for appointments, monitor the progress of the line they’re in, and communicate with staff, patients have a drastically changed experience when using healthcare services. Some organizations still hesitate to embrace and implement digital technology into the patient experience. But data indicates that customers already rely on digital technology and expect organizations to accommodate that reliance. According to a poll from Healthfully, 80% of consumers want the ability to use technology to manage their healthcare experience. Furthermore, the average consumer uses tech constantly throughout their daily lives. The average U.S. adult spends more than seven hours a day on screens, according to Exploding Topics. Healthcare organizations should prioritize implementing helpful tech solutions like patient queue management to avoid customer alienation. Patient queue management software has substantial benefits that enterprises should not overlook. With features that allow customers to enter virtual queues from their phones, patients can remotely wait in the virtual waiting room and monitor their queue times. Implementing virtual queues doesn't mean healthcare organizations need to eliminate waiting rooms. It simply gives patients the ability to choose.
The million-dollar question that healthcare organizations might have is whether or not waiting rooms are such a bad thing. Waiting rooms were the only option for healthcare services before technology advanced enough to make them less necessary. So how bad could it be? By implementing software to eliminate waiting rooms, might healthcare organizations solve a problem that doesn’t exist? The answer to this question is a firm no. Waiting rooms pose a genuine risk to older patients' well-being. A 2012 study of elderly residents of long-term care facilities published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal showed that a visit to an emergency department is associated with more than a threefold increased risk of acute infection. While this vindicates the need for patient queue software, it is also common sense. Requiring sick and injured people to share a room for extended periods increases patient risk. The pandemic highlighted that the prior waiting room model is untenable during an airborne virus outbreak among those visiting emergency rooms and doctors' offices. Healthcare providers adapted by spacing chairs, having customers wait outside, and mandating masks. While they may have curbed the virus from spreading, they reduced operational efficiency and didn't enhance patient satisfaction. It is not insignificant that waiting rooms also have extremely long patient wait times. The longer customers are cramped in a waiting area, even if socially distanced, the more at-risk they are. Similarly, the more unhappy they will be. This is why it is incredibly important for enterprises to be very conscious of the state of their waiting rooms.
We’ve established that waiting rooms might inadvertently put customers at risk, but what do your patients think of them? Customer satisfaction is vital in healthcare, as it's still a business, and unhappy customers can easily switch providers. The waiting room is a defining step in the patient's journey before receiving service. So it is worth asking if increasing patient satisfaction in the waiting room experience is necessary or if customers are okay with the current status quo. Data shows that consumers distrust crowded waiting rooms and dislike the experience they provide. A QLess survey of 250 U.S. adults showed that 59.4% of consumers associate congested waiting areas with unsafe conditions. If customers feel unsafe in the waiting room, chances are they will not enjoy their overall experience. A contributing factor in this situation is that the average waiting room is just not a pleasant place to be. Typical healthcare waiting rooms present sterile environments with white walls, fluorescent lighting, outdated magazines, and a T.V. This is hardly a positive environment, and according to Fierce Healthcare, unpleasant waiting rooms are a bigger issue for customers than long wait times. Rather than investing in more comfortable chairs or a higher-definition television, enterprises should focus on the real problem. Customers just don’t like waiting rooms either way. Patients prefer waiting from home or nearby cafes to congested waiting areas. Giving the consumer the option to skip the waiting room altogether is the best solution to a longstanding problem.
The healthcare industry is about more than just improving patients’ well-being, although that is the primary objective. The modern consumer isn’t satisfied with just receiving excellent quality of care. The experience for patients along the way is not nearly as important. Healthcare organizations that want to survive in this new age of experience-centric care will do well to improve their waiting room. According to Forbes, 60% of Americans have had a negative healthcare experience in the past year, and 52% of those people will tell others about their negative experiences. Curating a positive waiting experience without risk and discomfort is important in building a patient-friendly healthcare organization. This will help create loyal customers and position healthcare companies to succeed.
It is clear that there is a need for change in the waiting room experience. Customers don’t feel safe, and there is an established correlation between emergency waiting room visits and further infections. The problem has only gotten worse in recent years. A 2022 study by Yale showed that emergency room crowds had reached crisis levels and posed significant patient safety risks. The same is true across Canada. The crowding is due to an overstressed system, not necessarily management failure. De-congesting the waiting room is incredibly important for both safety and satisfaction. Let’s explore how patient queue management software can lead to less crowded waiting rooms while providing efficient patient flow.
The primary feature that QLess offers that is designed to help de-crowd the waiting room is its remote check-in software. In a typical waiting room without a patient queue management solution, individuals have to check-in in person. They arrive at the front desk, inform staff they’ve arrived, fill in a form, and take a seat, waiting to hear their name called. This requires physical presence throughout the waiting process. Remote check-in software lets customers wait for their appointment without physically arriving until it begins. How this works is that customers will receive a link when they register for an appointment. They can access this link via mobile devices, computers, or an on-site kiosk. When their appointment is scheduled, they can tap the link and check in. Once they’ve checked into their appointment, the patient is automatically placed in a virtual queue. The queue displays the number of customers ahead and the projected wait time based on data tracking and machine learning, accounting for the line's size and wait times at different parts of the day. Customers can be queued based on appointment type or healthcare professional they're meeting. They can track their progress through an app or website and know when to be there. This means lines can move smoothly without customers needing to be in the waiting room until the end. This also lines up with what customers prefer. In a QLess survey of 250 consumers, 57.2% of respondents indicated they are likelier to patronize a business if they have early insights into wait times. QLess virtual queuing system's remote check-in feature eliminates the need for customers to enter waiting rooms until their appointment begins. They can choose whether they are comfortable in that environment and wait on their own terms.
Long wait times in healthcare have been a persistent issue and seem unavoidable due to the nature of the industry. Demand often exceeds the ability of facilities to provide efficient service due to the need for proper care and attention for each patient. This is why patients wait an average of over 18 minutes at physicians’ offices, according to PartnerMD, and 145 minutes at the average emergency room, according to Autoinsurance.org. Patient queue management software can’t entirely solve the issue of long waits that are endemic to the healthcare industry. However, it can provide organizations with a tool to increase staff productivity, manage customer flow, and improve overall efficiency, positively impacting wait times.
There are two key ways this software helps with this. Firstly, the patient queue management system completely automates the queue process, so enterprises don’t need to oversee it themselves. The software has configurable policies, like no walk-ins or a maximum 5-minute late policy for appointments. Then, the lineup can be completely automated, with the artificial intelligence-based system drastically more efficient and organized than a standard physical queue. QLess’s patient queue management software also has smart calendar features that give staff a better sense of their day. The entire appointment calendar is displayed for them, showing the customer, appointment type, and more. The calendar is color-coded and organized and can be segmented, so employees have a heightened understanding of their daily workflow, increasing overall efficiency. By reducing wait times, healthcare organizations can reduce the time people need to spend waiting for appointments. The remote check-in features allow customers to wait from wherever they please, but inevitably there will still be some customers that prefer to wait for appointments in waiting rooms. With automated queue management and smart calendar features, the QLess patient queue management system ensures waiting times are trimmed, resulting in less crowded waiting areas.
Communication in the healthcare process is incredibly important. Customers strongly desire communication from end-to-end in the healthcare process, and having better communication can lead to safer waiting rooms. With better communication, enterprises can create safer waiting rooms in several ways. Having customers that indicate they might be contagious wait remotely will reduce infection risk, and enabling customers to message staff if they are running slightly behind but still keep their appointment will lead to fewer delays. While this type of communication could lead to a safer, less crowded waiting area, many enterprises are ill-equipped to offer this level of communication. Customers expect communication, particularly through digital methods. According to Forbes, 80% of consumers surveyed said they prefer to use digital communications with their healthcare providers, and 43% said they want to engage digitally with their healthcare providers before, after, and during their visits. But many enterprises lack the digital infrastructure to provide this level of communication that customers are hoping for, even if it can make customers happier and lead to safer waiting rooms. The QLess patient queue management system empowers healthcare organizations with bi-directional communication features that improve the connection between customers and staff. With the QLess features, organizations can drive a more communicative approach to healthcare. They can individually message customers and receive responses, schedule messages to entire groups of customers, and create automated messages triggered at different parts of the patient journey. Better communication means less confusion, as late customers or no-shows often trigger chain reactions that lead to extended delays. With better communication, there are fewer bottlenecks, which means lines move faster and waiting rooms are less crowded. This also improves the patient experience, as enterprises can answer patients' questions digitally during busy times when they might not have the time to respond face-to-face.
One of the most significant ways healthcare organizations have pivoted away from the standard waiting room model is by leaning into virtual healthcare. The pandemic made face-to-face appointments a near-impossibility at many practices, and to combat this, many organizations pivoted to virtual healthcare options like telehealth. Providing medical care virtually remains important even after the peak days of the pandemic. According to McKinsey, virtual healthcare remains hugely impactful, with 46% of consumers using telehealth now compared to 11% in 2019.Telehealth leads to less congested, safer waiting rooms for obvious reasons. With the option to schedule remote healthcare appointments, customers don’t need to visit healthcare offices at all. If customers have a mild but contagious illness, healthcare organizations can schedule virtual appointments to ensure they don’t spread their illness. Ultimately, the fewer in-person visits, the less crowded waiting rooms will be. But many organizations might buckle under the weight of managing an entire virtual calendar without the proper digital solution.
QLess has virtual service features that enable healthcare organizations to provide a positive patient experience remotely. QLess is integrated with Zoom and Microsoft Teams, two popular video meeting platforms, and enables organizations to put customers in mixed queues that accommodate in-person and remote patients. How this works for remote patients is they would schedule an appointment online and select a virtual appointment. They will then receive a QLess link and be placed into a virtual queue when they check in for their appointment. They will then be able to monitor their wait time, see who is in front of them, and receive a Zoom or Teams link when their appointment is ready to begin. Virtual appointments are a crucial part of the post-pandemic world. The QLess patient queue management platform enables enterprises to integrate remote patients into their virtual queues and digital calendar, creating a smooth appointment process and easier virtual appointment management.
The waiting room is a longstanding problem in the healthcare industry that most organizations have neglected to address. The concept of making ill or injured patients wait for long periods in a congested room is one that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, although there haven’t been other options for organizations until recently. Now that QLess for healthcare and other patient queue management systems exist, the need for waiting rooms has been drastically reduced. These digital solutions enable enterprises to create a virtual queue where customers don’t have to be physically present to wait in line or in the waiting room. The customer can check in, monitor their status in line, and communicate updates with staff, all from their phones or computers. This means they can wait outside the office, from their home, at a nearby park, or wherever else they’d prefer. Customers can still wait in waiting rooms if they want to, but QLess allows them to wait remotely, helping to drastically reduce congestion in healthcare offices. Reducing risk in the waiting experience should be an important objective for all healthcare organizations, and it resonates with customers. Consumers strongly dislike the typical waiting room process that has been the norm in healthcare for ages. With QLess’s queue software, healthcare businesses can meet the needs of the experience-oriented patient while creating a safer, more positive waiting process.
