Troubleshooting

Check their mobile number on the visit first — a mistyped number is by far the commonest cause, and it is fixable from the visit itself.

Then open the visit and look at its notification history. A message that was held back shows Not sent, with the reason in plain words. The reasons you will see:

• the customer has opted out, by replying STOP or by asking your team;
• the number is blocked;
• that number has had an unusual number of messages today;
• it is a made-up number (07700 900xxx) that no real phone has — common in testing;
• the Free plan’s texts for this month are used up;
• your account has reached today’s limit for messaging new numbers;
• Queue Join has briefly paused messages to new numbers;
• the account is suspended, or its messages paused, by Queue Join support.

Replying STOP to any business on Queue Join stops messages from every business on it, so a customer who opted out somewhere else gets nothing from you either, and there is no override. Replying START turns them back on. See when a message isn’t sent and STOP, and what happens next.

Usually deliberate. WhatsApp goes first, and by default the text is a backup sent only if the WhatsApp doesn’t land. The backup is also dropped when the customer has already seen the alert another way — they read the WhatsApp, tapped the push or had their status page open. Customers with a US or Canadian number get a text instead of WhatsApp. See channels and fallback.

A banner across the top of the dashboard says why. On the Free plan, texts and WhatsApp stop once the month’s allowance is spent; push notifications and email carry on. Upgrading restores them. Paid plans keep sending past the allowance, drawing on overage instead — see what happens when the allowance runs out. The same banner appears if your account has messaged an unusually high number of new customers today, or if Queue Join has briefly paused messages to new numbers; customers you have served before still get theirs.

That message probably has every channel switched off, which is how a message is silenced. Check it under Location settingsCustomer messages, remembering these are set per branch — a message working at one shop can be off at another.

The late one is almost always the backup text. It waits for WhatsApp to report back: when WhatsApp says the message failed, the text goes at once, but when no receipt comes at all the text is held for a minute and released by a job that runs every five — so it lands one to six minutes after the WhatsApp. A backup that would arrive more than ten minutes late is dropped rather than sent.

Switching the text to always send makes it arrive straight away, but then a customer with WhatsApp gets both. Leave the default unless your customers mostly don’t use WhatsApp. See when to spend an SMS.

Automatic calls are offered on “it’s your turn”, “next in line” and “booking running late”, and only ever ring for an account with a voice call pack. By default a call waits two minutes and is placed only if the customer hasn’t seen their message by then. If nobody was rung, check:

1. Voice is switched on for that message at that branch.
2. You have a voice call pack, and this month’s calls (or your overage balance) aren’t used up — calls stop when both are, unlike texts.
3. The customer hadn’t already seen the message, and hadn’t been moved to Serving, served or cancelled before the call was due — any of those drops it.
4. They haven’t already been called about the same message: one call each.

If a call rang unexpectedly, the customer simply hadn’t opened anything within the delay. A call that goes to voicemail leaves the message after the beep. See voice calls.

Most likely the messaging allowance is spent — campaigns are refused while visit messages keep sending. Check your usage report, or add email to the campaign’s channels: email doesn’t use the allowance.

American networks require a registered campaign before business messaging delivers consistently, and that registration is reviewed by the carriers. Delivery elsewhere is unaffected.

Check three things, in this order:

1. The branch’s time zone. A wrong one applies your hours at the wrong moment.
2. Whether the waitlist has its own hours or is inheriting the general ones.
3. Whether a date exception is in play for today.

See location details and hours.

You have a capacity cap set, and both waiting and called visits count towards it. Raise it or work the list down — waitlist rules.

Somebody cleared the waitlist and chose to stop new people joining, or paused online joining from an unusual-activity banner. It lifts itself at midnight; to open sooner, press Reopen joining on the Waitlist page. Staff can still add walk-ins by hand meanwhile.

That is the end-of-day setting, which is on by default: at the end of your waitlist hours every visit still waiting or being served is cancelled, so tomorrow starts empty, and the people waiting are told the waitlist has closed. Switch it off under Location settingsWaitlistEnd of day if your line runs past closing.

One of the submit-time rules is catching them: existing customers only, one live registration per person, or a distance requirement. The distance rule also fails for anybody who declines to share their location.

If they are told to speak to a member of staff instead, Queue Join’s protection from misuse turned them away — a blocked or non-mobile number, too many joins from one number or connection, a failed security check, or a number from a country the location doesn’t take. Each refusal is listed with its reason under Location settingsWaitlistProtection from misuse (and the same section under Bookings). Visitors from further afield need Accept numbers from any supported country switched on there. Staff can always add a turned-away visitor by hand. See what Queue Join turns away.

During unusual activity — a sudden burst of online joins — extra checks are on at that branch for an hour, so more people meet the security check. The dashboard banner lets you switch them off if the rush is genuine.

Either of two things, both shown to visitors in the same words:

• The branch is locked because the account has more locations than its plan includes — usually after a subscription ended and the account fell back to Free. The longest-running branches keep working. Upgrade or remove a location — see plans and billing.
• The account has been suspended by Queue Join support (see below).

The waitlist is switched off for that branch.

The code is tied to the location and queue chosen when it was created. Create a new one pointing at the right place and reprint — printing QR codes.

Your public short name has probably been changed, which breaks every link built from it. Change it back, or reprint everything and update your website and social profiles.

Usually printed too small, or on a curved or reflective surface. Print larger, put it flat, and test in the light the customer will actually be standing in.

Work down the filters a slot has to survive:

1. Does the branch have booking hours set for that day?
2. Is the service available for bookings rather than waitlist only?
3. Does its notice window rule out the dates being looked at?
4. Is a resource that can do that service actually working then, and not already booked?

See booking online.

Nothing is limiting concurrency. Define resources, or set the location’s simultaneous booking cap.

The waitlist figures, the daily chart and busiest hours count waitlist visits only. Bookings have their own appointments section further down the page, and their own report.

On the classic model, adjust the buffer. On the intelligent model, the estimate is only as good as your service durations and resources — an under-stated duration produces an estimate that is always wrong in the direction customers notice.

The classic model follows how fast you have actually been calling people, so a quiet spell moves it. Showing a range rather than a single number is usually the better presentation — wait time estimation.

They are restricted to specific locations. That is separate from their role and applies on top of it — team and roles.

Check which view you are in, using the switcher at the top of the sidebar. The waitlist, appointments and location settings only exist in the location view; QR codes, reports and account settings only in the account view. Team and analytics appear in both — in a location view they cover just that branch. From a branch’s overview, the stat cards open analytics for today.

Some pages are also hidden from people whose role can’t open them — Analytics, Team and Marketing among them.

There are no passwords, so there is nothing to reset. Sign-in links expire after five minutes and work once — request a fresh one. If they never arrive, check the spam folder and that the address is the one they were invited with.

If they sign in but land on a page saying the account is suspended, see the next entry.

Queue Join support has suspended the account. While it is, every member of the team sees only that page, your join and booking pages tell visitors the business isn’t taking visitors online at the moment, and no messages go to customers. Nothing is deleted: when the suspension is lifted, everything comes back as it was. Email hello@queuejoin.com to sort it out.

Support can instead pause just your messages, while the dashboard keeps working. Each message then shows Not sent on the visit, saying messages from the account are paused.

That is deliberate: an organisation must always have an Owner. Promote somebody else first.

Check the report’s own run history. A failed run is recorded and not retried, because re-running it would produce the same numbers and a second email.

No range ever includes today, deliberately — a report covering a day still in progress gives different numbers each time you run it.

Days run from midnight to midnight in each branch’s own time zone. Check the branch’s time zone is right.