The Cost of Customer Service

Another topic, closely related to the bit I found about the cost/damage of failure to keep delivery/appointment promises, is the cost to the customer of remaining on hold waiting for service via telephone, as mentioned in this excerpt from Michael Hoffman's book on customer service:

I started writing this book while on hold with my cell phone company, listening to horrific canned music and hearing this recording every 90 seconds: “Your call is very important to us."

The CSR on this call was kind enough to remind me, “Sir, we have over 60 million customers to take care of” ... it occurred to me: “What if all 60 million customers were experiencing the same on-hold frustration?”

His accounting seems very hinky, even at a glance, so I'll not validate (by repeating) his estimation of the total value, and would caution anyone interested in quantifying the problem to do a bit more research. Even if you're more modest/realistic about the amount of time spent on hold and the per-minute value of a person's time, the number gets quite large when you multiply by 60 million.

What's more important from a brand perspective is how this disregard further contributes to the frustration of customers who feel their time isn't valued by brands that wish to earn their loyalty - the impact of which is far more damaging than the accounting suggests.