If your customers find themselves in queues, celebrate it!

Prefer to listen?

In the past few weeks, I’ve found myself in long queues. Boarding for planes, cloaking items at an event, getting my morning coffee. What I have observed is: there are teams who manage queues well and teams who don’t manage them at all.

Standing in a very long line can be frustrating at the best of times, especially if you have somewhere to get to and are time-pressed and hungry. Observing people in front of me and behind me reacting to the queues, and observing my own thoughts and emotions in a queue, what stands out like a beacon is that when people are informed and feel cared for in a queue, the frustration and angst dissolves.

If you don’t acknowledge or communicate with customers in a queue, you don’t meet their basic need to feel seen and heard. Silence is frustrating and confuses people.

Minimal communication to customers in a queue also means you don’t express empathy and show the customer you understand that they’re frustrated or that this queue is inconvenient.

Communication with empathy to customers in a queue shows them that you see them, you hear them and they are important!

It’s generally better to overcommunicate, early and often. Otherwise, the customer may make assumptions about what the delay means.

When a queue forms in your business, rather than seeing it as an operational challenge or failure, use it as an opportunity to lean in and dial up your customer service.

As simple as this concept may be, it’s often the simple interactions and ordinary moments of your business touchpoints that create either loyal followers or one-time customers who never return.