Every busy shop has the same ten minutes: a cluster of people at the counter, someone asking "who's next?", and a staff member trying to remember whether the family of four came before the man with the kid. A waiting list fixes that with one screen. Customers get a number, the board shows who is up, and your staff call the next party instead of guessing. Here is how it works in Fuze Store for a clinic, a salon, a carinderia at lunch rush or a carwash on a Sunday.
What a digital queue actually changes
The Waiting List add-on turns the line into a list. Each party gets a position, a live wait timer and a status. You serve them in order, call them when ready and mark them done. Numbers restart at #1 every morning in your store's local time, like a take-a-number dispenser.
It suits restaurants managing tables, service businesses like salons, barbershops and spas, retail shops with fitting rooms, and any business where customers wait their turn. A clinic's reception, a carwash bay and a lunchtime carinderia all fit that last line.
Adding a party takes ten seconds
Open Waiting List from the POS menu and press New Waiting List. Five fields:
- Name and Party Size are required.
- Mobile Number is optional, and is what lets you text the customer.
- Estimated Wait is the minutes you expect, shown to the customer so they know what to expect.
- Notes holds special requests: "needs high chair", "senior citizen", "interior only".
Press Save and the party appears at the end of the queue with the next number. There is no edit screen for an entry, only status actions, so if you typed the mobile number wrong, cancel the entry and add it again.
Calling the next customer
Open a party to see its actions. Call marks them Called; you can call again to re-announce. Done marks them served and clears them from the active queue. Cancel removes a no-show. Skip passes over a party that stepped away while keeping their place in line. Wait returns a Called, Skipped or Cancelled party to Waiting; a party you cancelled rejoins at the back, while a called or skipped one keeps their original spot.
Completed parties stay visible for the rest of the day under the Done filter, so you can look back at how the rush went.
The board customers watch instead of you
The part that empties the counter is the customer-facing board. On a second device, a tablet or a monitor that can run Fuze Store, go to Configurations → Display, turn on External Display, and under Display Modes choose Waiting List. Open Displays and the board launches full screen.
The board shows Now Serving (parties you have Called), Waiting (everyone still in line with party size and how long they have waited) and the estimated wait you entered. When nobody is waiting it shows your store logo and a short "no one waiting" message. As a party waits past its estimate its row gradually changes colour, so staff can spot who has been waiting too long without reading the numbers.
The board updates in two ways. If you run the free Fuze Store Hub on a computer in the shop and your POS is paired, queue changes travel over your store Wi-Fi and keep working if the internet drops. Without the Hub, the board still refreshes live from the cloud as long as the display device has internet.
Give them a ticket they can scan
If you have a receipt printer, turn on Auto-print queue ticket QR under Configurations → Preferences → Printing & Devices → Printing. Every party you add prints a small ticket with your store name, their number, position, party size and estimated wait, plus a QR code. It works on 58mm and 80mm paper and goes to the printer with the Queue role, or your default printer.
The customer scans the code with their normal phone camera and lands on a web page showing their live position, how many parties are ahead, and a "You're up!" banner the moment you call them. No app and no sign-in. Your staff can scan the same code with the Fuze Store app to open that guest's entry straight away. The feature is off by default; check that the code scans cleanly on your printer first, since 58mm codes print small on some budget printers.
Texting "it's your turn"
Calling a party does not send a text on its own. Two kinds of text message are available when the SMS add-on is active, and both need a valid mobile number on the entry:
- Automatic on join. Turn on Auto-text queue link on join under Configurations → Preferences → Order → Waiting list. Every guest added with a number receives a link to watch their place in line.
- Manual when ready. Open the party and press Send SMS. Confirm the number, pick a template such as "table ready", and send.
Each text uses a small amount of your prepaid SMS wallet balance. If the SMS add-on is off, Call still works; you just cannot text from the queue. Many customers lock their phone after scanning the ticket, so when it is their turn a direct text is the most reliable nudge.
A short routine for the rush
- Before opening, start the board. Open Displays on the second device and check it shows the empty state with your logo.
- Add every party with a mobile number and a realistic estimate. The estimate is what the board and the ticket promise; a slightly generous number beats a red row.
- Call, Done, Cancel as it happens. The board is only as honest as your last tap.
- Skip, do not cancel, the customer who stepped out. They keep their place, and a Wait brings them back.
- At close, open the Done filter. Parties that waited well past their estimate tell you where to add hands or change your estimates tomorrow.
For a salon, barbershop or spa, this replaces the walk-up "how long?" with a number and a board. A clinic gets the same thing at reception, and a carwash gets a bay queue customers can watch from the waiting area.
The full walkthroughs are in the Waiting List Overview, Managing the Queue, Customer Display Screen and Queue Ticket QR. Fuze Store is free to start, and the waiting list switches on as an add-on when the line gets long enough to need one.