No one likes to wait, right?  While I’m pretty sure no one would say they like waiting, the truth is actually a little murkier than at first glance.

In one of my earlier blog posts, I dissected our finding that customers expect (or even prefer) to wait between 30 to 50 seconds before speaking to a live rep- and that these customers would trade off 30 seconds of wait time for a 1% better chance of getting their issue resolved.

My conclusion was two-fold:

-One, that a faster average speed of answer (ASA) is a minor consideration in the customer experience unless it goes past the 50-second mark and

-Two, customers care much more about what happens during phone conversations than how long they were on hold.

A recent article from HBR on customer experiences waiting online (you know, those progress bars that pop up when you are searching for flights or seeing if there are any iPads left in stock) adds to our initial findings and provides some interesting food for thought.

The article finds that transparency is key.  When customers are shown why they had to wait – even if it is a symbolic show – they are more satisfied than those who had to wait without any indication of what was being done to retrieve their information.  The coolest part: this finding largely holds true even when the group with no transparency has a significantly shorter wait time.

So, a customer would rather wait and see what is being done on their behalf (like viewing a list of airlines being searched or a tabulation of stores being checked for inventory) as compared to an instant response (or even an online game to play while they wait).  Customers just want to feel like companies are working hard to help them – and all that transparency can really pay off in the customer experience.

But, just like our findings, the article shows that no matter the wait time – we have to come up with high-quality answers when the customer finally gets a live rep or the online results page.  If we show all the work we are doing, but come up with inaccurate results, well that’s a lose-lose scenario.

So, it’s not necessarily a matter of speed.  At the end of the day – the customer wants to know why it is taking time to get them the information they need AND we have to be accurate in getting them that information.  Simple as that.

The article details many examples of showcasing the effort we put into serving the customer – from online to phone to live interactions.  What do you do to show the customer how you are working hard on their behalf?

CCC Related Resources:

Boosting Web Self-Service Stickiness

Improving Issue Resolution Performance

Advice on Reducing Cost Per Contact

Related posts:

1. When 3 is Less Than 2
2. Customer Effort, Revisited
3. Are You A Low-Effort Service Organization?
4. Are You Using the Right Channel to Survey Customers? (Part 1 of 2)
5. The Right Way to Respond to Customer Complaints