The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian information technology (IT) provider yesterday urged businesses to "change their mindset" and embrace digital solutions to the problem of long customer lines during the COVID-19 crisis.

Philip Darville, SolveIT Bahamas' managing director, told Tribune Business his firm had teamed with a US-based company, QLess, which specialises in the development and provision of virtual queuing systems.

"We have the clear issues that we are facing with having to deal with crowds and customer queueing," Mr Daville said, pointing the persistent long lines at food stores and pharmacies due to the need to maintain social distancing protocols.

"So we've recently partnered with a company out of the United States, QLess, which specialises in virtual queue systems. The concept of virtual queue systems is essentially the same as checking into a flight digitally.

"The idea is this would eliminate the need to physically stand on a line. What we would do is use technology to virtually stand on the line, and you would be notified electronically by an SMS (text message) about the progress update on your queue system."

Mr Darville said SolveIT Bahamas had just signed the contract with QLess last week, and was now in the educational stage of learning its product. He added: "We have had significant interest from the public sector. What's happening is that the biggest gaps existing right now are in client-facing solutions within government and being able to see customers in a safe and professional manner.

"Right now we are busy talking to people and showing them how it works, and letting people know there are more options than the regular legacy-based concepts like standing in the sun and things like that."

Mr Darville explained that the logic behind the technology is "two-fold. One is the consumer and one is the operator, meaning each establishment has operator facilities. So it is completely cloud-based and the operator essentially manages the queue.

"So let us say each business has a queue that they want to establish for customers," he added. "One may be for customer service, one may be for returns and one may be for new store purchases as an example. So what would physically happen is each consumer would go to the app, which is free and downloadable, find the merchant, see their available queues and join the queue.

"The merchant, in turn, would essentially manage that queue by each customer who flows in and out. They would then summon the next customer. What can happen is each customer would be able to understand how long their wait times are.

"For every time they check in they will see how many people are ahead of them, what is their estimated wait time, and they would get notification of the progress. So every five or ten minutes they would get a notification that they are now 12th in the queue or sixth in the queue, and when they are in front of the line they get a notification that says you are at the front of the line now come.

"So you present yourself at the front, and you show your SMS, as an example, to the front desk or the security and they would be able to process you. It is a technology that is focused on business resiliency," Mr Darville explained.

"There is no hardware required. It is done either from a PC or from a phone or tablet. So, literally, operators would just manage the queues. They are seeing people that come in, and the persons would have virtually checked in.

"It is a technology that is focused on business resiliency. The greatest issue we are faced with now is that commerce has essentially stopped for the most part, so this is avenue that we are aggressively trying to promote in government, first of all, to be able to get core services up and running again and handle client-facing environments. Then this needs to be looked at for retail businesses because jobs are at risk."

Mr Darville added: "We were analysing this prior to COVID-19. The key thing that we wanted to do is be able to improve efficiency in the delivery of services by various agencies and businesses, because one of the biggest things that happens - and something we all complain about - is wait times in business.

"So this was something we were analysing months back to be able to offer to the Bahamian public something that increases efficiency and overall customer satisfaction."

Mr Darville added that ultimately "businesses have to change their mindset to the way they approach commerce. We have been legacy-based for so long that, as entrepreneurs and business stakeholders, we have to understand that commerce is diverse and it is changing. We have to be more fluid to customer satisfaction.

"Things we are seeing with COVID-19 is what we should be have been seeing years ago, like curbside pick-ups. Really and truly, businesses should have made it so easy for commerce to happen that you shouldn't wait for a pandemic to offer these types of conveniences to our customers.

"This is the new reality; this should be the new reality. We should be able to cater to our customers and satisfy them to improve our brand perception because, at the end of the day, I would be more inclined to patronise a business that values me and shows me that they value me more."