There’s a question that almost no facility manager asks themselves with sufficient precision: do my customers complain because they wait too long, or because they wait “badly”?
The distinction isn’t rhetorical. Research on the psychology of waiting—starting with the seminal work of David Maister at Harvard Business School—shows that customer satisfaction is determined much more by the perception of the wait than by its actual length.
A ten-minute wait without visual cues, without information on the order in which you were called, without knowing how long it is, is experienced as much longer and much more stressful than a twenty-minute wait managed transparently.
This has concrete and immediate implications for anyone managing counters, reception desks, pharmacies, public offices, and branches.
In our whitepaper ” The Psychology of Waiting ” we have collected:
- the scientific principles that explain how people perceive waiting time
- because uncertainty, perceived injustice, and idle time amplify frustration
- how every psychological mechanism translates into a concrete design choice in queue management
It’s a document designed for those who make customer experience decisions, not for software developers.
It’s free.
Just fill out the form below.
