6 ms·

I wonder how this be could be applied to customer service, queues and waiting lines outside of loyalty card programs.

jason_shah 14y ago
"Your expected wait time is 45 minutes..." And then after a brief moment, the same voice comes on and says "We've cut your time in half. It's just 20 minutes now!"
- FreshCode 14y ago
  Like loading screens that go faster near the end? I don't know that making the wait time look worse than it already is (40m vs 30m) will please customers.
  - ckorhonen 14y ago
    I agree - for a once in a blue moon interaction, sure, not having to wait as long as you originally thought might be good. For any kind of interaction which may be repeated then it just makes you look like a stupid business owner or software developer who can't properly estimate how long something will take!
    - plorkyeran 14y ago
      I'm not sure that's true. One case that comes to mind is World of Warcraft server queues. In general, waiting in a queue to log into a server is something a player does either daily or never, and people really like to comment on their very exciting experience in the queue once they finally get in. In several years, I don't remember ever seeing a negative comment about how the queue didn't take as long as the initial estimate and in fact there were often positive comments when that happened. On the other hand, when the initial estimate was too low, people frequently complained about how bad Blizzard was at providing estimates.
- shrikant 14y ago
  IOW, as an earlier manager of mine would say, "Set low expectations, and exceed them." I am still ambivalent about that, though.
  - pizza 14y ago
    My dad always says the way to make people happy is to under-promise and over-deliver.
    - Evbn 14y ago
      and that's one of amazon.com's official mottos.
- patio11 14y ago
  There's been some fun research done on the topic of progress bars and user perceptible wait times. (To the surprise of absolutely no-one who is paying attention, a) people suck at math and b) if one has accurate knowledge that a process will take 100 units of time, coloring in 1% of the bar per unit of time is provably suboptimal with respect to user happiness.)
- kens 14y ago
  Disneyland does something like this with wait times for attractions. According to a 1989 Newsweek article: The waiting times posted by each attraction are generously overestimated, so that one comes away mysteriously grateful for having hung around 20 minutes for a 58-second twirl in the Alice in Wonderland teacups. Source: http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/37703/21793670.pdf http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/37703/21793670...
- GoliMaster 14y ago
  Always a nice moment when that happens. Though I believe your talking more about "under promise - over deliver" rather than applying a sort of progress to a certain goal. Always use "under promise - over deliver" when possible, your customers will love you for life :) (exception: DMV)

"Your expected wait time is 45 minutes..." And then after a brief moment, the same voice comes on and says "We've cut your time in half. It's just 20 minutes now!"

FreshCode 14y ago
Like loading screens that go faster near the end? I don't know that making the wait time look worse than it already is (40m vs 30m) will please customers.
- ckorhonen 14y ago
  I agree - for a once in a blue moon interaction, sure, not having to wait as long as you originally thought might be good. For any kind of interaction which may be repeated then it just makes you look like a stupid business owner or software developer who can't properly estimate how long something will take!
  - plorkyeran 14y ago
    I'm not sure that's true. One case that comes to mind is World of Warcraft server queues. In general, waiting in a queue to log into a server is something a player does either daily or never, and people really like to comment on their very exciting experience in the queue once they finally get in. In several years, I don't remember ever seeing a negative comment about how the queue didn't take as long as the initial estimate and in fact there were often positive comments when that happened. On the other hand, when the initial estimate was too low, people frequently complained about how bad Blizzard was at providing estimates.
shrikant 14y ago
IOW, as an earlier manager of mine would say, "Set low expectations, and exceed them." I am still ambivalent about that, though.
- pizza 14y ago
  My dad always says the way to make people happy is to under-promise and over-deliver.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    and that's one of amazon.com's official mottos.
patio11 14y ago
There's been some fun research done on the topic of progress bars and user perceptible wait times. (To the surprise of absolutely no-one who is paying attention, a) people suck at math and b) if one has accurate knowledge that a process will take 100 units of time, coloring in 1% of the bar per unit of time is provably suboptimal with respect to user happiness.)
kens 14y ago
Disneyland does something like this with wait times for attractions. According to a 1989 Newsweek article: The waiting times posted by each attraction are generously overestimated, so that one comes away mysteriously grateful for having hung around 20 minutes for a 58-second twirl in the Alice in Wonderland teacups. Source: http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/37703/21793670.pdf http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/37703/21793670...
GoliMaster 14y ago
Always a nice moment when that happens. Though I believe your talking more about "under promise - over deliver" rather than applying a sort of progress to a certain goal. Always use "under promise - over deliver" when possible, your customers will love you for life :) (exception: DMV)