A queue and traffic management tool for walk-in services.
For barbers and similar walk-in businesses, managing customer flow is critical. Customers arrive without appointments, creating unpredictable demand. During peak times, queues can build up, wait times become unclear, and staff planning becomes difficult. This multi-site barber chain needed a way to manage walk-in traffic across multiple locations, give customers visibility of wait times, and provide owners with data to plan staffing effectively.
Owners had no real view of when queues were longest or how chair utilisation varied throughout the day.
Without data on usage patterns, it was hard to schedule staff for peak periods or optimise coverage.
Customers had no way to know how long they would wait, leading to frustration and potential walk-outs.
There was no way to see which chairs were busiest or identify opportunities to improve efficiency.
We mapped the customer journey from arrival to service completion, identified pain points and understood how staff currently managed queues.
We created prototypes for the customer-facing view, staff interface and owner dashboard to validate the approach before building.
We built the web application with real-time updates, responsive design for mobile use in shops, and secure access controls for different user roles.
Qlo is a web-based queue and traffic management tool with three main components:
A simple interface showing current queue position, estimated wait time and which chairs are available. Customers can see their place in the queue in real time.
Staff can add customers to the queue, assign them to chairs, mark services as complete and manage the flow throughout the day.
Owners can view usage data across locations, see peak times, chair utilisation and plan staffing based on real patterns rather than guesswork.
Qlo has helped the business in several ways:
Better planning for weekends and peak hours based on actual usage data
Clearer view of usage across chairs, helping identify optimisation opportunities
Customers have clear expectations on wait times, reducing frustration
Reduced peak time congestion through better visibility and planning
We're continuing to work with the business to extend Qlo with additional features, such as appointment booking integration and more detailed analytics. There are also plans to roll out Qlo to more locations as the business grows.