We live in an era where you can reserve a stranger’s car by phone, knowing exactly when they will pick you up, you can rent a stranger's apartment sight-unseen, you can push a button and summon your Tesla, and you can deposit checks using your smartphone.
Yet, magically many businesses (I’m looking at you - DMV, Jury Duty, Foodbanks, Schools, COVID testing lines) seem to think that their time is more valuable than their customers’ -- because that’s exactly what they are signaling to their customers: We work on a first come first served basis, and the only way we know who is “first” is by having all of you wait in line. Why do we care if you have to spend one or more hours of your life just staring at the head in front of you? ...or perhaps staring at your smartphone?
The pandemic has brought lines back to us, and while people are supposedly standing 6 feet apart, wouldn’t they be much safer if they were just waiting in their cars or doing other things except standing for an hour 6 feet from someone who may be infectious? Would you voluntarily choose to stand behind a stranger whose health habits you don’t know about? ...for any period of time?
There are apps for everything today -- even standing in line. Show your customers you care about their health and value their time! Use an App to manage your lines (or queues). We set out to write one that we would want to use, but there are other competent ones too -- use the one that best suits your business.
As a service to the community, we are offering SafeW8 free to any line servicing Covid-19 testing or vaccinations. Hopefully, by being a little thoughtful and proactive, we will all get through this pandemic together safely.