O2 offers its customer queuing and staff scheduling tech to business customers

Offer extended to businesses after successful implementation in retail reopening

O2 is making the technology it has used to safely reopen its retail stores available to its business customers.

Virtual queuing, staff scheduling, and appointment booking technologies are all part of a suite of solutions that the operator is offering. O2 is targeting its customers in the retail, stadium, and healthcare spheres, among others.

O2’s queuing software was developed by tech firm Qudini through the operator’s Wayra UK startup hub. It places customers in a virtual queue, giving them updates about their position in the queue and wait-time estimates.

Wayra UK is also responsible for Rotageek, the company behind O2’s workforce scheduling software. Rotageek optimises schedules by creating and assigning shifts in tandem, generating millions of combinations of schedules and only proposing a final schedule where every shift is assigned to a worker.

Clothing retailer Gap is rolling out Rotageek across its UK and EU stores following a successful trial that saw rota accuracy improve by 14 per cent.

“Digital has been disrupting business models for decades, but COVID-19 has turbocharged the changes we are dealing with,” said O2 Business managing director Jo Bertram.

“We believe that innovative technologies like virtual queuing and staff scheduling can help businesses reopen in a safe, socially distant way that builds customer confidence.”

O2 is also offering optional access to its O2 Motion big data technology. O2 Motion gives anonymised, aggregated data about people’s movements and locations. Government agencies and transport bodies have used it during the past three months to learn about the spread of Covid-19 across the UK.