>When I go into the bank and find a long line to reach a teller, it's of course frustrating. Mentally, I start a timer in my head, and the longer the timer goes the worse of an experience it is. What stops the timer? Leaving the bank?
>No. — It's "reaching the teller".
This is the hardest customer service lesson to learn for many, many technical people, including myself and many of the people I've hired.
the thing is, for me, that clock stops when I leave the bank. I don't see how waiting for the teller is any better than waiting in line.
But it's very clear to me that Steve's article is correct for most people. The thing is, if a task is going to take from 2-48 hours, and you email them and say "I got your order, you will be up in two to 48 hours" and you convince them it's not an autoresponder, for some reason, they will be quite a bit happier than if you write the exact text on the order page, or send them an autoresponse with the same text.
I don't know /why/ this is... I mean, it's not that way for me. But it is, and it's been hard for me and my people to learn and implement this. But we need to do it if we want to branch out into the higher margin, higher support markets.
I find it very interesting that user interfaces work the same way. If I click on something and it doesn't do anything, it is much more frustrating than if it immediately presents me with an hourglass or beachball for a few seconds.
Not doing anything makes people feel a lot more like there is an error. At least with an hourglass the program/website has acknowledged the click enough to display an image. Many people probably don't realise though a loading spinner is usually very loosely connected to whether the thing they have clicked on is actually doing anything or not.
I think this has to do with the inherent unreliability of GUIs. "Did I click the right button?" "did I click the /active/ part of the right button?" etc... on a command line I'm perfectly happy to type the command, press enter, and to get no response until it's done. I know I typed the right command, I can see it right there.
but people are pretty unreliable too, so you might have a point that the GUI is a better metaphor for interacting with another person than the CLI.
Expectations. It is all about managing expectations. If you expect things to be finished in a certain amount of time and they do not, delays are a huge frustration. If things are finished before your expected time, you are satisfied or happy.
It is, in a sense, the other side of the coin of control. We have schedules and needs, and we want to be in control of these things. In order to be in control, we need to remove the unknowns -- have the right expectations.
Visiting a customer when your project is past due is an effort to help them understand what to expect so that they may feel more in control of the outcome. The customer's money is on the line. They are happier when they have a reasonable handle on the situation.
Practical example: It is far better to tell your customer, "We expect to receive the parts in two days, and we will call you immediately" than "We will call you when we receive the parts."
I disagree with both assessments. There are timers for every stage. If I have to wait in line too long, that's irritating. Once I get to the teller, she needs to be efficient or that is irritating.
Someone in the thread was talking about beach balling. I prefer the beach ball to a freeze, but if all I did was click on a mail the ball better not be there very long.
Let me go out out on a limb and say it only works for you the way it does when you trust the second party. The problem for most people is that what the consultant does is black magic and they need reassurance that it is indeed being worked on.
>No. — It's "reaching the teller".
This is the hardest customer service lesson to learn for many, many technical people, including myself and many of the people I've hired.
the thing is, for me, that clock stops when I leave the bank. I don't see how waiting for the teller is any better than waiting in line.
But it's very clear to me that Steve's article is correct for most people. The thing is, if a task is going to take from 2-48 hours, and you email them and say "I got your order, you will be up in two to 48 hours" and you convince them it's not an autoresponder, for some reason, they will be quite a bit happier than if you write the exact text on the order page, or send them an autoresponse with the same text.
I don't know /why/ this is... I mean, it's not that way for me. But it is, and it's been hard for me and my people to learn and implement this. But we need to do it if we want to branch out into the higher margin, higher support markets.