IDEA: Engage customers in your lobby. Keep them busy and sell to them while they wait.

Keep customers from getting bored. Give them something to do while waiting.  Every store or company is different so the matter of time that your visitors wait will vary.  The one thing you would like to do in this short period is to impress them or at least keep them interested to make the wait seem short.

Here are some ideas including the typical waiting room with magazines and a television. If you can capture any customer feedback during this time, you should do so.  It will be your opportunity to see how your market is changing and hopefully react.

Ideas to keep your customers occupied and interested:

• Play a television, movie or feature a 24 hour news station. Instead of bothering everyone with the noise, offer earphones that can change between multiple sets for each customer.
• Provide a countertop with stools and plenty of space to read a company newspaper, lay out a laptop or to sit and do homework.
• Ask customers to review a product, think about it and then ask them to enter a contest. Request their best product improvement ideas or suggestions.  Pick winners weekly or monthly and give out purchase discounts redeemable for merchandise or cash.  To add credence to the program, feature pictures of past winners on the table for contestants to review and provide impetus.
• Ask everyone to participate in a simple suggestion contest. Ask, “What is the one thing our company can do better?” Pick the best ideas every month and post them on the wall or in the hallway for new contest participants to see. Do not bias the answers.  Ask the simple question above and stop.  Then proceed to listen.
• Make the room a nice silent reading room, plenty of lamps, chairs in which to read with absolutely no distractions.
• Allow your customers to charge their telephones while waiting. Install multiple connections along the wall with various adaptors for different makes and models of telephones and pad computers. They will appreciate this kind gesture.
• Feature headphones and five to ten stations of different music for listening. Within those headphones is the ability to break in and call them to the front desk when their wait is over.