Customer’s Patience (or Impatience)

By Rosanne D’Ausilio, Ph.D., TMCnet Call Center Training Columnist

President, Human Technologies Global, Inc.

 

A research study done by Dimension Data shows that Americans are impatient when waiting in queue and are quicker to abandon calls than anywhere else in the world.

 

Americans are so impatient – they’re willing to wait an average of only 37 seconds for their calls to be answered before they abandon the call.

 

However, the rest of the world exhibits greater patience: 

 

Europe, the Middle East and Africa - willing to wait 67 seconds

Asia-Pacific customers are the most patient – willing to wait 72 seconds

 

What’s your average queue time?  Your Average Speed of Answer?  (do you know?)

Here’s some best practice statistics for you to compare yourself to.

 

 

Where are you?  Are corrections needed? 

 

My caveat regarding statistics:  Use them as guidelines, not hard and fast rules.

 

Remember, people don’t care what you know, until they know you care.

 

 

© 2006 Human Technologies Global, Inc. All rights reserved. www.human-technologies.com

 

 

ROSANNE D'AUSILIO, Ph.D., an industrial psychologist, and President of Human Technologies Global, Inc., specializes in profitable call center operations in human performance management.  Over the last 20 years, she has provided needs analyses, instructional design, and customized, live customer service skills trainings.  Also offered is agent and facilitator university certification through Purdue University's Center for Customer Driven Quality.

           

Known in the industry as 'the practical champion of the human,' she is author of "Wake Up Your Call Center: Humanize Your Interaction Hub," hot off the press and in its 4^th edition, "Customer Service and the Human Experience" (co-authored with Dr. Jon Anton) and "Lay Your Cards on the Table: 52 Ways to Stack Your Personal Deck (with a 32-card deck of cards)," all available at  www.human-technologies.com. Also offered is a free ‘tips' newsletter on How to Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch at www.HumanTechTips.com.

 

She sits on the Advisory Board of Help Desk Professional Association, the Editorial Advisory Panel and is a columnist for TMCnet.com on Call Center Training, represents the human element on the Advisory Board for an Italian software company, and authors numerous articles for industry newsletters, web ezines, and is a much sought after dynamic, vibrant, internationally prominent keynote speaker.