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Overview of the Concierge page
Updated
by JRNI
Concierge is a visitor management system that has been designed to enable simple and efficient queue management. It is a key component of JRNI Virtual Queuing, and is managed via the Concierge tab in JRNI Studio.
Concierge is typically managed by one or more staff, which might include a person managing a queue and/or adding new queuers, or staff managing their own queues and availability.
Concierge labels
Below is a breakdown and description of each of the available sections on the Concierge page:
Staff available: These staff are ready to serve waiting queuers.
Staff now serving: These staff are currently serving a customer. The estimated available time is primarily based on the service duration in action.
Staff busy: These are staff that have marked themselves (or have been marked) as “busy” for a set amount of time. They are unavailable to serve in the queue during this time. The estimated available time is based on the amount of time they were marked as busy for.
Staff on break: As per “staff busy”, these are staff that have marked themselves (or have been marked) as “on break” for a set amount of time, including when they are estimated to become available again.
Staff unavailable: Displays the staff that are not available to serve in the queue. Staff must be moved here manually, by selecting the three-dot icon, followed by End shift.
Add queuer: From here, you can manually Add a new customer to the queue or use the Add existing button to search for and add an existing customer.
Queuer: Displays the customers waiting in the queue to be served. Here you’ll see a queue ticket number, the customer’s name, the service they require, a calculated time of when they are due to be seen, and the time they arrived in the queue.
Missed appointments: A new section for missed appointments has been added. All customers marked as absent or who left the queue will be listed here. Users can either serve them immediately by clicking on ‘Serve now’, or re-add them to the queue by clicking on the 3 dots. Additionally, users can search for customers by name or ID. NOTE: This section only displays the customers from the current day.
Services: Displays a list of any services assigned to the queue, the estimated wait time, duration of the service, and any price. The three-dot icon allows you to add a customer to the queue or create an appointment.
Concierge and appointment bookings
Staff availability on the Concierge page is independent of that on the staff calendar. The staff calendar in JRNI Studio uses staff shift patterns, including any blocked time, to determine when a staff member is available for bookings. However, on the Concierge page, as part of JRNI Virtual Queuing, a staff member is made available (or unavailable) manually (by selecting them as in the create/edit queue flow).
If you have staff who are performing appointment bookings through JRNI Studio, and serving in a live queue, they will still be bookable for appointments as usual, according to their availability on the staff schedule.
Should a staff member be serving in a live queue and they have an appointment booked within the next half an hour, the service, customer name and remaining time in minutes/hours until the start of the appointment will be shown beneath the staff’s name. Any blocked time in studio calendar will also be displayed under the staff name as ‘Blocked time’. This info will also be shown when assigning staff to a customer. This ensures any staff managing the queue are aware of the potential conflict, and can assign another staff member to serve the next queuer.
Making queue staff unavailable on the calendar
Should you wish to make staff unavailable for appointment bookings made by customers while they are serving in a live queue, you can use JRNI’s block time function to make their calendar unavailable for bookings for a chosen period.
Staff managing a queue can override the blocked calendar time if they need to book a walk-in appointment; however, this method ensures that customers do not book the staff member externally via the customer booking journey.
If certain staff are regularly serving in a live queue, another option is to amend their shift pattern on the staff's schedule. This way, shift patterns can be created to allow for booking availability via the calendar, while leaving space (e.g., no calendar availability) during the periods they are known to repeatedly serve in a queue.
Related articles
- Managing live queues via the Concierge page
- Setting up and managing a display board
- Setting up a virtual queue
Still have questions?
If you have any further questions about managing queues via Concierge, please contact our Support team, who will be happy to help.
