By Sylvia Carr, 27 August 2004 11:25
NEWS Online banks and retailers, call centre operators - anyone who does business online or on the phone - should be careful how long they make customers wait because the UK population has grown more impatient.
Broadband is partly to blame, as it's had the unintended consequence of making its users more impatient in the rest of their life.
One in three people say they're more impatient since getting a high-speed net connection, according to research commissioned by telecom company Cable & Wireless.
Overall, 38 per cent of the 1,000 people surveyed say they've become more impatient over the past five years, whether or not they have broadband.
The magic number is three minutes - that's how long businesses have before a third of customers will stop waiting online or on the phone. They're a bit more patient at high street shops, where a third of people will queue for five minutes before leaving.
The old stereotype of men being less patient than women holds up in the research. When shopping or banking online, women are about three times more likely than men to wait more than a minute for a page to load.
Women, however, are becoming impatient at a faster rate than men. Two in five women - compared to one in three men - said they're more impatient than five years ago.
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Broadband is a tool, which replaces a lesser tool, namely dial-up. Until recently, I was satisfied with dial-up and the lower speed of my internet browsing. I liked the support people at my ISP. But now on broadband, my browsing takes flight! Of course servers at websites do go down ocasionally, so patience is still necessary, but not just in computing. We seem to have entered an age utterly lacking in discipline. The yokels clammering for their websites to load already, are also the drivers in traffic who blow through stopsigns, cut off cars and jockey down the highway like a slolum course.
The world is an imperfect place, and those proceeding through it like mindless juggernauts would benefit the world by shutting up and trying their websites a little later.
2. Neil Posdtlethwaite
Less Customer Service = More Impatience.
Fairly simple, not rocket science.
3. anonymous
Too many sites have plentiful eye candy, little content on each page, and unclear design. Instead of getting to the desired information in three or four clicks, the user needs 10 or more. The site designers do not make navigation clear to someone unfamilar withthe site.
4. Phil Thane
Funny Silicon running this story, the slowest website I ever load is... Silicon. I only put up with it because the contect is usually good, I agree broadband has made matters worse, but not for the reason stated. Despite the fact that less than 50% of internet users have it, web designers assume we all have, and load more and more graphics and animations on every page. It's counter productive, Silicon aside i give a page about 30sec, if it hasn't loaded by then I'll shop elsewhere.
5. Darren
Hmmm.. maybe its the high advert to content ratio