The Hidden Economic Costs of Long Customer Service Wait Times

This past week, my partner tried to call one of Canada’s largest pharmacy/retail chains to unlock her loyalty card. She made two attempts: the first time, she waited 30 minutes before the call was dropped, and the second time, she waited 40 minutes before someone finally answered and resolved her issue. While it's clear that this company should improve its processes, ensuring multiple channels for resolving such issues rather than forcing customers to wait over an hour on the phone, I want to focus on a different perspective—why making customers wait over 30 minutes on a synchronous channel is a significant drain on the economy.

On these two separate occasions, my partner had planned to buy pastries from a local pastry shop near our home but couldn't because she was stuck waiting on the phone. Here's the broader economic impact:

• The local business lost revenue because they didn't sell pastries to my partner.
• The employees of the pastry shop missed their sales targets, losing part of their incentive bonuses.
• The government lost out on additional business taxes and income taxes associated with the pastry shop.
• The bank that the local business uses for deposits missed out converting the deposits into commercial loans for other aspiring pastry shop entrepreneurs.
• The bank, now with fewer deposits, earned less revenue and couldn't pay out additional incentive bonuses to their employees.
• The government also missed out on more business taxes and income taxes associated with the bank.
• My partner, who works for a bank, loss some of her performance incentive bonus due to the bank not meeting its earnings targets.
• With fewer dollars to spend, my partner now buys fewer pastries at the local pastry shop

And so, the cycle repeats itself.

Let’s all focus on creating solutions within customer experience departments to reduce wait times in synchronous channels because the world needs more pastry shops.

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