Keep clients coming back · Every business
What Waiting Does to Customer Satisfaction, According to the Research
A study that matched more than 11,000 patient surveys to the minutes each patient actually waited found that satisfaction falls with every added stretch of waiting, and that the wait colors how people judge the work itself.
At a glance
- In a study of 11,352 patient surveys across 44 clinics, the chance of the highest satisfaction score fell from about 77% at a combined wait of 10 minutes to about 53% at 60 minutes.
- Longer waits also lowered how patients rated the information, instructions and treatment they received, so waiting time reaches past the waiting room into the judgment of the professional.
- For an illustrative business with 120 visits a week, cutting the typical wait from 40 minutes to 20 adds about 12 top-rated visits a week, or 600 a year.
The number and where it comes from
The figure comes from a study published in The American Journal of Managed Care in 2014. Researchers took a full year of patient satisfaction surveys from all 44 outpatient clinics of a large academic medical center in the Midwest, about 49,000 mailed and 11,352 returned, and matched each response to the time that patient spent in the waiting room and the exam room, which averaged about 23 and 15 minutes.
Using a statistical model that held age, gender and visit type steady, they estimated how likely a patient was to give the top score at different total waits. The answer fell in a smooth curve, losing 8 points between 10 and 20 minutes and 24 points between 10 and 60, a drop of almost a third of the starting level.
Two details make the finding more useful than a general warning that waits are bad. Satisfaction was more sensitive to time spent in the exam room than in the waiting room, which fits the long-standing observation that being left alone after the service seems to have started feels worse than waiting to begin, and first-time patients waited longer than returning patients (23.1 minutes against 19.6) while giving the top score about 5% less often.
The authors were careful about what the study cannot show. Response rates were about 23%, and the wait could not be fully separated from the quality of care or the time spent with the physician, so the curve is best read as a strong association measured in a very large sample, not as a precise price for each minute.
What customers expect is the other half of the picture. A 2021 survey of 180 patients at an urban primary care office, published in Family Medicine, found patients said they could wait up to about 20 minutes on average before seeing their provider. That number lines up with the clinic curve, since the steepest early losses happen between 10 and 20 minutes and the curve keeps sliding past the point patients themselves call their limit.
A worked calculation
The calculation below translates the curve into visits for a business that sees 120 customers a week, using the study's modeled probabilities as a benchmark. The final dollar line rests on an assumption about how many of the extra delighted customers come back once more, so it is best read as a rough order of magnitude.
| Visits per week (Assumption) | 120 |
|---|---|
| Chance of a top score at a 40-minute wait (Cited benchmark (44-clinic study, 2014)) | 59% |
| Chance of a top score at a 20-minute wait (Cited benchmark (44-clinic study, 2014)) | 69% |
| Added top-rated visits per week (Calculated (120 × 10 points)) | 12 |
| Weeks open per year (Assumption) | 50 |
| Added top-rated visits per year (Calculated (12 × 50)) | 600 |
| Share of those who make one extra return visit (Assumption) | 10% |
| Average visit (Assumption) | $90 |
| Revenue from the extra returns (Calculated (600 × 10% × $90)) | $5,400 |
| Customer time given back per week (Calculated (120 × 20 minutes ÷ 60)) | 40 hours |
Illustrative example; replace every assumption with your own numbers.
How you compare
- Ten minutes or less: in the clinic model, top scores held best at a combined wait of about 10 minutes, so most visits starting within 10 minutes of the booked time is a strong position.
- The 20-minute line: patients in the primary care survey put their own limit near 20 minutes; a business that regularly runs past it is spending goodwill.
- New customers: if your first-time customers wait longer than regulars, as they did in the clinics, that gap is the place to start.
- Your own baseline: for one week, note the booked time and the actual start time for every visit, then compute the average gap and the share of visits that started more than 20 minutes late.
The next step is a one-week log of booked and actual start times, which gives you the number to set beside the curve above.
About this research: This article is built on a study in The American Journal of Managed Care that matched 11,352 patient surveys to measured wait times across 44 clinics, supported by a 180-patient survey on wait expectations in Family Medicine and the foundational paper on the psychology of waiting lines. The probabilities are modeled estimates from a health care setting; a salon, gym or repair shop will have its own curve, though the direction is likely the same. The worked example is illustrative.
Sources
- Bleustein, C., Rothschild, D. B., Valen, A., et al. Wait Times, Patient Satisfaction Scores, and the Perception of Care. The American Journal of Managed Care 20(5), 2014. 11,352 survey responses, 44 clinics.
- Pockros, B., Nowicki, S. and Vincent, C. Is It Worth the Wait? Patient Perceptions of Wait Time at a Primary Care Clinic. Family Medicine 53(9), 2021. 180 respondents.
- Maister, D. H. The Psychology of Waiting Lines. In The Service Encounter, Lexington Books, 1985.
Related reading: The First Five Minutes: How Arrival Shapes the Whole Visit · How to Make a Wait Feel Shorter: Eight Principles From Queueing Research · What One Empty Appointment Slot Costs Over a Year · What a Great Customer Experience Is Worth, According to the Research
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