Electronic queue is used in many organizations. I will write about it using the example of Sberbank.
Most people are customers of Sberbank. We all saw how the bank grew and developed. And also everyone felt the changes that occurred with the introduction of new technologies.
I want to talk about the electronic queue.
I worked at Sberbank for 1.5 years. And I can objectively assess the need electronic queue, its disadvantages and advantages from the point of view of the client and the bank employee.
IDEALLY
By itself, the electronic queue allows you to distribute customers by type of operation. There are long-term operations, there are less time-consuming ones. Some operations are standard, easily resolved, but there are also controversial situations that need to be resolved within a few days. Accordingly, employees are divided into several categories according to the functionality. In one window there is a fast flow of clients, in the other window more complex tasks are solved and it takes more time for one operation. It happens that one client comes with several tasks.
And so, the client comes to Sberbank, takes a queue, waits to be served. The coupon indicates the number of people in line before him, the estimated waiting time.
IN REAL
As for the employees. The electronic queue is embedded in the motivation of the employee to work quickly, the salary of the employee himself and the salary of the entire team of his unit depend on this. Long customer waiting times go into the red line, and this negatively affects the salary of employees. Therefore, operators very hastily call the next client, although they have not yet finished with the previous one. Clients accumulate near the window, begin to resent. To which employees are forced to respond that the call allegedly occurs automatically. There is a dispute between clients.
Employees can also be understood, because no one wants to receive less for their work. At the same time, in a hurry, you can do so much “bells and whistles” that at the end of the working day you will not find either the end or the edge.
Is it possible to evaluate the work of employees for speed, at the same time demand compliance and explain with clients according to scripts, have time to “suck in” a part of the banking products?
The whole problem is that you need to evaluate the density of the client flow. One place has more customers, the other has less. Accordingly, if top management treated the red queue not as an indicator of slow workers, but as an indicator of the intensity of the work of the unit, they would be able to objectively assess the work of the unit. They would use the electronic queue as an indicator where it is necessary to improve the working conditions of the unit: increase the number of service personnel, check the ability of employees to perform a number of tasks (availability of certificates, knowledge of employees), equipment of the unit with special equipment, Internet bandwidth (carries out software updates during non-working time).
I would like to know the opinion of professionals, how they relate to the electronic queue.
You need to take a voucher with a number in the terminal standing right there in the lobby, and then sit quietly on the couch or stand (as you are lucky) waiting for a call. The first thing that catches your eye is the calm that reigns in the hall. No arguments about who was borrowing for whom, and no real nervousness when the operator announces that the window is closing for a technical break. "Boring, girls!" - the great strategist Ostap Bender would say. And I would be wrong. Visitors to the central branch are not yet bored. For a client who has visited Sberbank for the first time after a long break, it becomes fun already at the entrance. Where to go, what to do - it is not clear. This information can only be obtained from kind-hearted people in line. Just sitting and waiting, after the coveted ticket was on hand, is also not as easy as it seems. If in the “live” queue it is more or less clear how many people are ahead of the waiting list, then in the “electronic” one you will not understand anything. You have, say, the 114th number, and the numbers "95", "60" and "73" are lit on the scoreboard. How much longer to wait? Well, if not more than 15 minutes. So much time, according to the results of research conducted by the international company Nexter, is the average Russian ready to spend in line. A resident of the European Union, by the way, "explodes" already in the third minute of waiting. But we are hardened people in queues and therefore obediently stand for almost an hour. Although, perhaps, soon we will also loosen up, like Europeans, because “electronic” queues are being introduced to reduce these very queues. The management of VTB-24, where 85 percent of visitors are served in this way (Sosnovy Bor is still an exception), for example, claims that the throughput of the branch grows by an average of ten percent already three months after the introduction of the system. Around the same period, customers get used to the ticket queue. However, it cannot be argued that what is good for VTB-24 will also suit Sberbank. Clients are different. Moreover, their number. A typical visitor to Sberbank is a pensioner who comes to receive a pension, deposit or withdraw money from a savings book and pay utility bills. For him, get a coupon through the terminal - a big problem, as well as in general any communication with electronic devices. Nevertheless, no employees were seen in the lobby helping to understand the intricacies of the terminal. Therefore, an elderly person will have to spend time to navigate the innovations. At the same time, there are thousands of pensioners who are accustomed to trusting a stable "Soviet" bank. And after the appearance of problems with reception utility bills at the post office, their number has increased even more. Therefore, working people who do not have enough free time will have to get used to sitting in an electronic queue, just as they used to get used to standing in its “live” counterpart - some payments can only be paid at Sberbank, and nowhere else. So far, however, the Sosnovobortsy have a choice. You can stand the old fashioned way in four other city branches of Sberbank, which have not yet been touched by new trends. When will they switch to "electronic" queues? Bearing in mind that the installation cost electronic system in the department is from half a million to a million rubles, hardly soon. A more precise answer could be given by the management of the Sosnovy Bor branch, but it turned out to be unprepared to answer our questions without a written request to the main press service. *** Tested on myself On Monday, after the end of the working day (at 18.30), the Mayak correspondent went to Sberbank to pay several bills. The terminal was covered by an information board, as the branch is open until 19.00, and there were still a lot of people in the lobby. People standing in line advised to ask the guard about coupons left by visitors who did not want to stand in line. One of the four left coupons, issued at 18.00, was given to the correspondent, which caused some dissatisfaction among people who had already spent half an hour in the "electronic" queue. An invitation to the cashier was displayed on the information board at 18.50 - ten minutes before closing. There were still people with coupons in the lobby of the Savings Bank. Numbers After the introduction of electronic queues, sales of banking products increase by 9%.
Today I came to Sberbank to pay the state duty - 100 rubles, and there is an innovation: an electronic queue.
Previously, you had to stand in line on your own two feet, but not now. First you come to a special terminal. The terminal has a sensitive screen. There are six green rectangles drawn on the screen. Each rectangle contains the type of operation: cash payment, account transactions, currency, utility payments, fines, taxes, duties, etc. You press your finger on the rectangle you need, after which the terminal issues a coupon with a number. Outwardly, the coupon resembles a cashier's check. You take the coupon and sit down on a chair to wait to be called. Of course, if a free chair exists. If not, then you stand. There were about 20 chairs today.
My ticket:
How does the visitor know that it's their turn? They have a special board hanging under the ceiling. From time to time, a couple is displayed on it: the number of the coupon and an arrow to the number of the cash desk, to which the owner of the coupon should approach. All visitors sit and look at this scoreboard, voice notification also works. The called visitor is sent to the cash desk number indicated on the scoreboard.
Our good people are not yet accustomed to innovation. Therefore, a special lady is installed next to the terminal, who, seeing another visitor who has appeared at the door, proclaims: "We have an electronic queue! Come to the terminal, get a ticket." Then she finds out from the visitor whether the visitor has difficulties in obtaining a coupon, if there is, she is interested in what the client needs and she herself clicks on the desired green rectangle, and gives the visitor a piece of paper with a number. During aunt's absences, its functions are taken over by random visitors from among the previously numbered visitors.
The visitor has a number of opportunities to skip his turn, for example, he may not notice that he is being called if he thinks, does not see well, or arrogantly considered a book or newspaper to be more entertaining reading than a scoreboard. God forbid the visitor to take advantage of these opportunities. In this case, the operator will reset his queue, and the unfortunate person will be forced to get a ticket and take the queue again. The tellers refuse to serve visitors with expired coupons.
Have Sberbank customers benefited from the electronic queue?
Before:
It was almost impossible to skip your turn without leaving the office;
- in the queue it was possible to read, play games on the phone, etc.;
- if a person missed his turn (for example, he went to a nearby store and did not have time to return on time), then the queue itself decided whether to put him at the beginning or at the end. Usually, if at least one person remained who remembered being late, and could confirm that he was "occupied", he was let forward.
Now:
It is possible to skip the queue;
- in the queue you have to constantly stare at the scoreboard or listen to the voice notification;
- serving a customer who missed his turn is not allowed automated system electronic queue. The operator, if she wants, can meet such a client and serve him bypassing the electronic queue, but this only inconveniences her.
Only the tellers themselves have gotten better, because the queue of pensioners no longer shines in front of their windows, and no one attacks them with a battle cry: "Just ask me !!!" To be honest, the "live queue" at Sberbank is a hassle for me, that I, perhaps, am on the side of innovation.
With the help of coupons, Sberbank has learned to better manage queues at offices
Photo: Alexander Ryumin / TASS
In the future, perhaps, the interaction of a person with a bank will take place exclusively in remote access. And customers are likely to pay extra for the luxury of real communication as additional service, predict representatives of the financial sector. In the meantime, although more and more transactions are transferred to remote service channels, the flow of customers to banks does not dry out. Banki.ru studied how banking electronic queues are managed and how much time clients of the largest credit institutions spend waiting.
Banks are one of those organizations where queues are inevitable. To effectively manage customer flows, credit organizations use electronic queues. Already, there are technologies that allow you to “stand” in such a queue without physically being in the bank.
Queue management systems are constantly being improved and refined in accordance with market requirements and customer requests, says Marina Moskaleva, head of the development department at Neuroniq. “Now you can be in the queue without being physically present in the branch, for example, using the “remote viewing of the information board” function. The printed ticket with the queue number contains a generated QR code that allows you to track the status of the queue using a smartphone. The client, reading this QR code with any mobile application to recognize it, receives a link, clicking on which displays a page with data on the called numbers of clients. These data are similar to those displayed on the information board in the department. Thus, the presence of the client directly in the zone of visibility of the scoreboard becomes optional. If a client comes to a bank branch at the time of peak load and sees a large number of waiting, he can, when choosing a service at the terminal, use the possibility of pre-registration for the current day. For example, specify the time of the visit in an hour or two. In this case, a person can be sure that his number will not be called before the specified time,” explains Moskaleva.
Now you can be in the queue without being physically present in the branch, for example, using the remote viewing of the information board. The printed ticket with the queue number contains a generated QR code that allows you to track the status of the queue using a smartphone
In addition, banks are actively implementing biometric technologies to identify customers. “Biometric technologies are used to identify VIP clients at the time of their registration at the queue terminal to confirm the priority of service. To do this, the terminal is additionally equipped with a face recognition camera or a fingerprint scanner. Also, similar technologies are used in case of integration of the queue management system with ACS ( access control and management system. - Approx. Banki.ru) to confirm the identity of the client when accessing special storage. In this case, not only the identification of a person by a picture of a face or a fingerprint, but also voice identification or scanning of the iris of the eye can be used, ”says Marina Moskaleva.
Despite the growth in the number of transactions in remote service channels, the number of customers visiting bank offices to carry out transactions is not decreasing, Banki.ru reported in Sberbank.
“Sberbank is systematically addressing the issue of reducing queues in its divisions. 90% of clients wait in line for transactions for no more than 10 minutes. The average waiting time in line has dropped to 4.5 minutes. This is a good indicator, given the level of penetration of non-cash transactions in the country and the age structure of the bank's customers. On average, one employee serves more than 100 clients - individuals per day,” Sberbank told us.
At the press office VTB 24 noted that the waiting time of a client in a bank branch is influenced by several important factors: structure of operations, duration of service and number of clients per employee.
“One of the tasks of the bank, which we successfully solve in last years, - transfer of fast service operations from branches to remote channels. Accordingly, the front line was able to focus on more complex target operations. For example, this design mortgage loan. At the same time, VTB 24 continues to reduce the average waiting time for a client in the office - now it is about 4 minutes. Currently, one VTB 24 employee serves about 20 clients a day. This indicator for a year and a half decreased by 20%, the total client flow to the office - by 40%. The average waiting time has decreased from 4 minutes 37 seconds to 4 minutes 13 seconds,” the bank said.
AT RNKB said that over the past year, the waiting time in line has halved: from 24 minutes in June 2016 to 13 minutes in June 2017.
“The introduction of an electronic queue management system in operating offices, optimization of intrabank processes, transfer of clients to remote service channels (Internet banking, mobile app, self-service terminals). So, if the number of payments at the cash desks of RNKB branches in May 2017 amounted to about 740 thousand, then in the same month, using remote service channels, RNKB customers made 1.7 million payments. On average, a specialist in the sales and service sector of the RNCB serves up to 13 clients per day,” the bank’s press service commented.
In an electronic queue, the standard life hacks of people who hardly know the word “life hack” will not work, for example, “I took care of this woman” or “I just have to ask”, which have been actively used in traditional queues for a long time.
But readers of Banki.ru assure that the electronic queue can be “dispersed” so that service is faster. “In order to speed up the queue, you need to select the service you need and collect more coupons, then it will be displayed as a priority in the system and it will be serviced faster,” Banki.ru reader Ekaterina S. shared her experience.
In order to speed up the queue, you need to select the service you need and collect more coupons, then it will be displayed in the system as a priority and it will be served faster
According to Marina Moskaleva, the only trick for the client is to take a ticket not for the service that is required, but for the one for which the line goes faster (higher priority). “But in this case, the operator who called him on the wrong service redirects the client to desired service, and the system provides redirection to the place in the queue corresponding to the moment of registration. So the client wins nothing,” she explained.
