When your customers are waiting in line, what sort of customer service do they receive?

So often I see people lining up for different things. The longer they are in that line without being engaged by the business they are waiting for or receiving any sort of customer service, the more likely they are to up and leave, and all the marketing that business has done prior is thrown out the window.

Let’s take a look at the customer service of one wildly successful US business, In and Out Burger. During peak periods, when 20+ cars are waiting in the drive-in queue, they send a staff member out to work the line.  They go back 10 cars and start taking orders on an iPad.  The menu is hung below the iPad so the customer sees exactly what they’d see at the drive-in ordering window.

By taking their order the customer is morally compelled to remain in the queue and complete the sale at the payment window.  There’s no doubt that if they didn’t do this, some customers would simply exit the queue and their sale would be lost.

If you have significant numbers of customers lined up, it pays to have someone working that line. Otherwise you risk losing out valuable sales and customers.