Customer reception: what information about waiting can actually change
At a reception desk, a delay can quickly become a matter of trust, even when staff have no control over its duration. The useful management question is specific: what information should be provided during a wait, and how can we check whether it actually helps those waiting?
What the literature establishes
Shirley Taylor (1994, Journal of Marketing) shows that delays affect service evaluations partly through the uncertainty and anger they generate. Her study also highlights the attribution of the delay: reactions depend on how much responsibility customers assign to the provider. Waiting is therefore not simply a duration; it is a situation that people interpret.
Information does not have a uniform effect
Michael K. Hui and David K. Tse (1996, Journal of Marketing) compare information about waiting duration with information about position in the queue. Their experiment shows that the effects of this information on service evaluations vary with the length of the wait. The acceptability of waiting and affective responses help explain these effects: providing information does not simply shorten perceived waiting time.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that routinely announcing an estimated waiting time is enough. These studies do not, however, establish that every estimate is beneficial, regardless of its reliability and context. A cautious management rule is to distinguish a supported estimate from a promise, and explicitly acknowledge uncertainty when the timing is outside staff control. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence does not allow us to transfer directly
These studies examine specific service situations, not the full range of administrative, health-related or technical reception settings. They do not establish that the same message is suitable for a federal administration procedure, a public health enquiry or a telecoms case update. In precision manufacturing too, waiting for a technical assessment may involve constraints that an ordinary queue does not capture.
A practical check in Berne
Within SHR's « Accueil client » programme, an exercise applicable in Berne is to test an information protocol in a federal administration unit, a public health service, a telecoms support team or a precision manufacturer's after-sales reception service. Over two comparable periods, before and after its introduction, anonymously record actual waiting time, the information provided and the answer to the same question: “Did the information you received help you understand what would happen next in the handling of your request?” The protocol distinguishes what is known, what remains uncertain and when the next update will be given, without promising an unsupported service time. Comparing the proportion of positive responses within actual waiting-time bands provides a verifiable local indicator, without treating a before-and-after comparison as causal proof. To go further: explore the Client Reception training in Bern, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Client Reception in Bern
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