Customer Wait Time Definition

What is the customer wait time?

Average Wait Time (AWT), also known as Average Speed of Answer (ASA), is the average time an inbound call spends waiting in a queue or waiting for a callback if that feature is active in your IVR system. Customer waiting time is one of the elements that most influences a customer’s shopping experience to the point that it can ruin all your efforts to supply a product or service of outstanding quality as well as procedures for correct customer care, appropriate to your clientèle. A customer wait time analysis has conclusively shown that people won’t wait very long before leaving your store for good. In fact, customers are willing to wait only 14 minutes before being served. In one survey, businesses reported that they lost 75% of customers due to waiting times. And when a customer leaves the door with nothing in their hands but frustration, they’re unlikely to ever come back.

How do you measure customer wait time?

You look at sales and return volume at different times of the year (seasonality) and measure those against agents available and call times, as well as dropped calls and incremental revenue lost. When revenue lost and dropped calls are increasing, you plug those holes through more agent coverage or more automation possibilities.