Facts and issues: Your waiting time is estimated at…

… 13 years to assist a Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra concert
… 28 months for the delivery of an Aston Martin DBS
… 1 year to get an appointment with an ophthalmologist in Picardie
… less than you think: the average estimated waiting time is 36% more than the actual experienced wait time
… 1 minute 49seconds to pick up or drop off a parcel at La Poste – compared to 9 minutes in 2006
…7 minutes to collect your hold baggage at Houston airport … now 6 if you take the travelator
… 13 days, on average for a French company, this is how late they are paid by its customers, which equates to 1 billion euros in cash, and explains a quarter of bankruptcies.
… 1 hour and 8 minutes, this was found as the maximum time taken in 2012 to reach the customer service of Easyjet in England, on a premium rate number, resulting in a cost of £94.

The consumer and citizen spends their life waiting … 

Total annual hours spent by Americans in queues: 35 billion
Total annual hours spent by the English navigating the tax authorities’ voice servers: 4.3 million
Average annual total hours spent by a French person trying to reach customer services: 28 hours or 4 business days

Queuing can be a “lost” time, but not for everyone…

Annual revenue from the sale of products arranged in front of cash lines in the USA: $ 5.5 billion

… but those lines can be costly

The two main complaints of customers in store: wanting fast payments (71%) and less waiting (67%). If disappointed by these points, they are 30% more likely to change the store they shop at.

Contre toute attente, by Manuel Jacquinet and Frédéric Durand, Malpaso editions.

Read more about Contre toute attente, here.
I want it!

Sources:
Study conducted by Coleman Parks on behalf of Epson Europe, 2016;
Operations Research Center, Massachussets Institute of Technology, 2014;
Study conducted by the professional magazine En-Contact and the press agency Radio Caroline Media, 2014;
WeQ4U study