Mid-day Update

How the wait window is hurting productivity

Jeremy Hobson and Adriene Hill Mar 1, 2012

You probably know the drill by now: You buy something — let’s say a dishwasher — you want it delivered, and a company promises it’ll show up in a four-hour window. It can be maddening, all that waiting.

According to the Wall Street Journal, more than half of adults say they’ve used a vacation day or sick day to just wait around.

But that could change. The Journal reports there’s a trend afoot: companies are trying to calm customers by decreasing the wait window to two hours, and letting people know when the delivery truck gets close.

On today’s Mid-day Extra, we talk to Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of Nucleus Research, about the relationship between these long wait windows and lost productivity.

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