The cost of waiting is more than just monetary, it's also psychological. Businesses may feel the economic cost because if customers are waiting, they're not yet buying - and could renege - while the business is still paying for its staff and other overhead. But it's the psychological cost to customers that can be most detrimental to a business. Psychological stress is clearly a more difficult element to measure, but it's an important part of the customer satisfaction equation as businesses consider how best to structure their waiting line system.

Expanding services to reduce waiting times can bevirtual queues, electronic queuing, and in-line merchandising, which can alleviate the psychological stress that a person can feel or develop while waiting in line. Meanwhile using the queues may affect customers in a way that feels as though it's minimizing the actual and perceived waits.Managers should analyze the efficiency of the queue's configuration as well as the efficiency of their service agents and implement queue management techniques to cut wait times and alleviate the stress of waiting.

I believe being as transparent with the customer as possible is the key to keeping them happy so when it comes to waiting in lines, they should be kept up to date, so they have the correct expectation. Do you think that would help with customer satisfaction?