Let's face it, we all hate waiting. No matter the goods, service or experience that awaits us, a wait is a waste of time. In traffic alone, the average American spends more than 3 years of their lives just trying to get someplace. When they get wherever it is they're going, there is often a line waiting for them. Whether at the market, the gym, pub, restaurant, or mall, we spend far too much of our precious fleeting time standing around, just waiting.
We wait for service, deliveries, to checkout and pay, for information and updates, to try on clothes, to check our coat and hat, to get inside a building, for the elevator, for food and drink, and for so many other things that cost invaluable minutes every single day.
Your time is valuable, and when a business that you patronize makes you wait excessively, they are telling you that they do not value your time. When you perceive a business to not value your time it is more than just unpleasant - inevitably you question if the product or service is 'worth' such an experience to begin with. Maybe you accept the circumstances since you're already there, or there are no competitors, but the next time you're looking for a similar service, you'll think twice, before deciding to return.
Businesses that don't care about their guest's experience, lose valuable customers. Sometimes businesses lose sales before they even walk in the door, such as potential customers who 'balk' at the long, slow-moving line outside the trendy pub and go elsewhere. Queues may be inevitable, but if they are perceived to be slow and inefficient they severely damage your business by upsetting existing customers and scaring away potential ones.
The answer to the problem of waiting is to give customers their time back by eliminating inefficient standing queues and replacing them with an engaging queuing experience that, most of all, whenever possible, does not require the customer to be physically present to queue for service.
