The Science of Customer Waiting

Three approaches to solve one of people's biggest complaints

While improving a customer’s wait might not be as glamorous as the work that goes into dazzling and exciting customers, it is an important part of a good overall customer experience. It is also a main component of the process category in the 4Ps of Customer Experience™. In many businesses, it can mean the difference of nearly a full star in a five-star rating.

Waiting has always been an important aspect of the customer experience. Even the idea of tips to reward good service (which has been in practice and common lexicon for over 250 years) derives from an acronym for “To Insure Promptness” and not having to wait long. Today, 82% of customers actively avoid going to a business with a line and it impacts the customer loyalty relationship. Wait times cause businesses to lose customers and transactions.

The reason that waiting is so important to the customer experience is that humans are wired to despise it. This is because there are three primary negative emotions that are triggered when it happens.

The first is a lack of autonomy. Humans are very uncomfortable not being able to have a sense of control over their situation. Waiting is giving control to someone else and being subject to the business (or agent’s) direction or schedule. People that lose a sense of control eventually show signs of depression.

The second is boredom. People like to be productive with their time. This lack of productivity can lead to frustration so great that studies have shown people will chose physical harm over being bored. People generally find waiting as wasted time and lost productivity.

The third is anxiety triggered by uncertainty. Humans are programed to desire predictability. Evolution has taught us that those things we do not know can hurt us. Uncertainty triggers the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex-amygdala complex, which signals a possible threat (and therefore a stress response). Not knowing when the end of the wait will come adds anxiety.

In a discussion about waiting rooms, a colleague once said, “the best way to improve the waiting experience is to not make people wait.” However, eliminating a wait can often be difficult and require more resources, adding services or restructuring systems. For companies that have the luxury of being able to make these changes to eliminate wait times, that can be a straightforward solution. For those that do not, there are a few basic strategies that companies can apply to mitigate the situation and improve the experience (even if some waiting is unavoidable).

Give The Customer a Role in Reducing the Wait

Strategies that allow the customer to make choices related to their waiting experience give the customer back some control and autonomy.

One strategy is to let people pay to not wait. People dislike waiting so much they will buy VIP or early access passes in order to skip the wait or shorten it (and also feel special). Disney’s Lightning Lane Pass is an example of this (and provides the company a treasure trove of customer data). In many businesses, this will create a new revenue. Customers might instead qualify for a reduced wait by signing up for a service or create an account. This costs the customer no money, but provides new value to the business.

Another approach is to utilize technology to let customers do more self-service. Modern air travel provides an example. Flyers checking in on their mobile device, putting their bag on the conveyor belt and having their ticket on their phone means that they don’t need to wait in line to work with an agent. It also reduces the need for agents and saves the company time and resources (the savings is often the primary driver, but the customer experience is an added benefit). The customers are less bored because they have things to do and the customer gets more control over the process. However, this strategy can go too far and result in a negative experience if the customer has to do too much work where they see it as something that is part of the company’s service, or if it is difficult to solve the issue they have on their own.

Companies can also encourage or incentivize customers to take advantage of less busy times. Simply communicating better times can let customers change their behavior for their own benefit. For example, a business might have very little wait for most of the day, but get very busy during a few peak times. By letting customers know that there is a benefit to them to aim for an earlier or later alternative, the flow will be more even throughout the day.

Using a related strategy, Disney posts all the ride wait times on its mobile app and at ride entrances. This strategy provides the customer both autonomy and greater certainty. This not only helps the customer’s experience, but helps the company with more predicable use, which can lead to better staff planning. While a small business might not be able to provide real-time updates, it can still have signs on the queue line that give an approximate time at certain distances from the register.

Entertain and Educate

A person’s view of an acceptable time is subjective. A defined two-day amount of time can be long (like waiting for test results on cancer) or seem short (like a fun vacation weekend). A number of factors go into how a person feels about time. But when people are bored, they get frustrated. And it snowballs into more frustration the longer that boredom goes on.

However, when people are entertained, they lose track of time. People would be frustrated sitting quietly in the dark movie theater not knowing when the movie will start. But when the theater uses the screen to provide some trivia, educate on upcoming releases, and a show cartoon about refreshments, then people are engaged.

People’s boredom us managed by these tricks at an early age. Many pediatricians have had fish tanks and toys to keep kids occupied while they wait to be called to a room. The grown-up version of this was a collection of magazines. Today, most people read and watch things on their own devices, but it has been shown that people actually get more fatigue from looking at their phone in a doom scroll. So, businesses still need to identify ways to actively engage with waiting customers.

This doesn’t mean a business needs to go to the levels a casino uses to make people lose track of time. For example, luxury automobile dealers often have a nice collection of snacks (eating has been shown to lead people to lose track of time). Learning new things and being educated is another way car companies keep customers engaged. Some service departments use the time waiting for an oil change as a way to upsell accessories, teach them new things about their car, or even introduce a new model. It’s better than the customer being bored sitting in a chair. It also has financial benefits to the company.

Another strategy that can be effective is to have employees engage in conversation with customers, walk up and down the line getting people excited, or having visuals around that engage people. Disney does an incredible job of having wait lines snake through different rooms and view décor as part of the overall experience to a ride. Customers tend to not look at their phones and instead engage with the physical elements and friends. They are not bored.

Some businesses strategically keep customers busy by giving them something to work on where they think they are helping the process. This can involve completing information forms or taking care of something that they will have to do later. This makes the customer think they are saving time and being productive.

Finally, when entertainment can be personalized, customers will feel more in control and less bored. Apple’s call center allows customers to choose the type of music they listen to while waiting on the phone (or choose none at all). Customers might listen to something that makes them feel good, or even discover something new. That’s always a valuable use of time.

Inform with Specificity

Companies have learned that by being specific with timeframes, they do a better job managing expectations. When customers have an idea and a framework about the wait time, they feel empowered and have some of the self-control back. Specificity leads to less uncertainty and more predictability, thus less anxiety for the customer.

Most everyone has called a customer service number and been on hold. It can turn into the phone equivalent of solitary confinement when there is no idea when someone will come help. When a call center instead says the approximate wait time is 12 minutes, it is much more manageable. A customer can set their mind to it and maybe even do a couple chores while they wait and be productive. It’s even better when the customer is given more control over that time with the opportunity to get a call back (but it’s essential to estimate the call back time).

Even when customers have a general expected time frame based on past history, more specificity is appreciated. Most patients have developed a sense of how long it typically takes for a doctor to enter an exam room after they have been assigned to it. When a medical assistant says “the doctor will be in your room in about 10 minutes” it is more effective than saying “the doctor will be in soon.” Everyone has different definitions of what “soon” means. When the customer and employee expectations are different, it often leads to a bad experience.

Updates are also important in the communication process. If the expected time has changed, or is nearing expiration, it is essential to follow up and update a new time with an explanation or reason the delay has been extended. The information lessens the uncertainty. It’s always better to let people know that you don’t know anything rather than leaving them in the dark. Similarly, instead of not replying to a person’s email for some time, it’s better to let someone know you received it and will respond in an approximate time when you can get the information to answer the questions.

As a last note on communicating wait times and progress, try to avoid the phrase “thank you for your patience.” It is a hollow phrase that is one-way communication incapable of hearing what the customer is feeling. You don’t know they have patience. It is better to just apologize for the wait and when you actually connect with the person, then connect with them in an empathetic way to recognize the frustration they likely feel.

Michael Pearce is a managing principal at Hundred Ten, LLC