Search This Blog

Why Customers Hate to Wait on Hold, Chronemics Secrets of Customer Service


Here is an excerpt
Excerpt from an upcoming article by Jake Edmiston for i-sigght.com
Fuelled by market research, customer service departments are desperately trying to shrink the time it takes to respond to customer complaints. The latest study to mark a growing demand for prompt customer service found that almost 70 per cent of respondents expected their complaints to be addressed within 24 hours. Those figures -- and others like them -- have panicked companies spending more and more on customer outreach. 
On Social media, 42 per cent expected a response within an hour, according to the survey conducted by Convince & Convert. And Amazon.com is going even further, adding a new feature to their tablets that guarantees customer support within 15 seconds. When Amazon’s “mayday button” way unveiled on Christmas Day last year, the service surpassed its own expectations with an average response time of nine seconds.
Near-instant complaint management has quickly become the norm in the customer service industry – and questions usually revolve around how to provide it, not why we need to provide it.

The Study of Impatience
But a little-known academic discipline has attempted for decades to explain our insatiable desire for fast interactions. According to some students of Chronemics, North Americans have been hard-wired to feel small and inferior when others force them to wait.
“Somebody who is waiting, will feel they are of lower status than the person who’s making them wait,” said Patti Wood, author and non-verbal communication specialist who has harnessed Chronemics to train customer service agents and call centers.
“Research shows that waiting time is the single most important factor in customer satisfaction,” says Wood, who uses a cross-section of finding from psychology, sociology and anthropology to explain the need for prompt complaint resolution.
The theory traces back to 20th century anthropologist Edward T. Hall, who dubbed most Western cultures as “monochronic” – meaning they view time as a linear “road or ribbon extending forward into the future and back into time.” It’s difficult to think of time any other way, but Hall says other cultures are “polychronic,” so they don’t structure their daily activities around a concept of time as much as they do around personal interactions. In those cultures, which Hall claims are found in the Middle East and Latin America, missing scheduled appointments isn't often taken seriously.
In the North American model, however, time is almost always segmented into appointments, which has led to it becoming a commodity. We speak of time “as being saved, spent, wasted, lost,” Hall writes in his 1983 book Beyond Culture.
“Important things are taken up first and allotted the most time; unimportant things are left to last.”

The Black Hole Effect
In a customer service context, forcing people in monochronic cultures to wait for a problem to be resolved is equivalent to “stealing from them,” Patti Wood said in a recent interview with i-Sight.
“You feel like they’ve come into your house and taken something from you that you won’t ever be able to get back,” said Wood, author of SNAP Making the Most of First Impressions and Body Language “You’re subservient to them.”
When a customer is waiting on hold, the tendency to resent the company is made worse by what Wood calls the "black hole effect" -- where time "wasted" is amplified because "you're in isolation."
"You are in a vulnerable position. You don’t know the end result, you don’t know the person and you’re stuck," she said. 



 Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Possible Deal Breakers for a Relationship - A Quirks and Habits of a Man That Could Affect the Success of a Relationship

Quite a few quirks that could dramatically affect a relationship:

An addiction or overwhelming passion for something outside the relationship that strains the relationship such as I need to go to the bars and drink with the boys

An exercise passion that requires five hours a night and you're not training for the Olympics

Unusually close relationship with siblings and or mother to the extent you want to spend as much or more time with them then you do your sweetie

Their phone calls, emails and texts take precedence over you being present with your sweetie

Here's a weird one you love your dog more than you love you sweetie.  Talk is an incredible gift in life but if you want the dog to be between you and your sweetie at all times maybe an issue

The desire to binge, watch violent and or sexual borderline porn shows on TV Netflix or online when your sweetie doesn't like them. So spending seven hours binge watching shows that makes your girlfriend gross out could be an issue if that's how you want to spend your Saturday night week after week month after month.

This is it next one is seemingly subtle but it actually has been shown in the research to make a big difference not getting up and going to bed at the same time. In fact relationships are shown to work more effectively if the pair get up and go to bed at the same time.  It’s a predictor of long-term, happy marriages.

More ideas… just give me a shout my cell phone is 678-358-6160 or you can find me on the Internet at www.Pattiwood.net or searching for body language expert.


Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

How You Become a Body Language Expert by Patti Wood


This nice interview with me about my background was in a client's magazine.


The Magazine
Patti Wood –

Cues for success

Body-language expert Patti Wood shares the secrets of her superpower:

how to read people – and be read – accurately for better business


            Since she was a child, Patti Wood had always had what some might call a superpower: She could read people. She knew when they were telling the truth and when they were being disingenuous. She knew how they were feeling, regardless of what they were saying. But she wasn’t reading their minds; she was reading their body language.
            But it wasn’t until as a college student she took a nonverbal communications class, and Wood realized her superpower was actually a skill, and an actual science, So she began to, and earn degrees in it, conduct research on it, teach it at University level, write books about it, speak on it around the world and eventually become known as one the media experts in the field. “When I began in this field, reading body language was relatively unknown – I used to have to explain what it was,” Wood remembers. “Now, people are much more familiar with it; many even know some of the basics. But the depth of this field, its intricacies and its possible applications out in the world are endless.”
            Our conference members members will dip a proverbial toe into that nonverbal communications well when Wood presents Successful Signals – Body Language in Business at the group’s 2014 National Conference & Trade Show next month. Chances are, Wood will begin where we all do: first impressions.
            “Nonverbal communication has 4.3 times the impact of just a word message,” notes Wood. “And first impressions are formed in a tiny fraction of a second in all situations, including sales and business. In the first minute of interaction with a new person, we can exchange up to 10,000 mostly subconscious cues, and within three minutes, it’s a done deal – our first impressions of one another have been set.”
            According to Wood, these thousands of cues feed into four first-impression factors: credibility, likability, attractiveness and power. “And there are proven ways to consciously up those factors at any point in your interaction,” Wood attests.
            In an interview scenario, the same four factors are at play for both the hiring interviewer and the job candidate. Wood says research has found most hiring decisions are made within the first ten seconds, then the interviewer spends the rest of the time confirming their initial decision.
            “I recommend having more than one person conducting interviews,” states Wood. “There is a strong bias to hire people like yourself, but having a company full of people who are all alike may not be best for business. So have people of different personality types interviewing together, and you’ll get a more complete and accurate ‘read’ on candidates.”
             Out on the sales floor, first impressions can make all the difference – and they begin before the customer is even past the store’s threshold.
            “First impressions can be formed from quite a distance and before someone even speaks,” Wood affirms. “So potential customers are already ‘reading’ your salespeople as they stand at the threshold of the door and, depending on the perceived cues, the customer can decide whether they step forward into the store or turn around and walk back out the door.”
            In addition to learning how to create a positive first impression, participants at Wood’s presentation can expect lessons on connecting with millennials, serving vs. building selling relationships, reading cues that tell you when to go for the close, empowering your physical presence, and looking strong and confident.
            “Understanding body language better helps you give and receive impressions accurately – so your interactions and relationships can become more authentic,” concludes Wood. “When you can see how someone is really feeling, you can support them better, solve problems faster, just be a more effective human being.”


Patti Wood

Title:                                 Body Language Expert & Certified Speaking Professional
Website:               www.PattiWood.net
Media:                              :: Television includes The TODAY Show, Good Morning America, The Talk, ABC & FOX
                                          :: Publications include The Washington Post, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal                                           :: Communication consultant for Us Weekly, featured twice monthly
                                          :: Author of seven books
Latest book:         SNAP: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language & Charisma
                                                      [SnapFirstImpressions.com]
Hometown:          Atlanta, Georgia
Tidbit:                              She loves Sherlock Holmes, and especially the current BBC series, Sherlock.




Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

How to Answer Questions from the Media

Check out this stirring speech in response to media questions about America.


This is an excerpt of a media interview with Jeff Daniels (I love him and was an extra in a movie that he starred in called, “Something Wild”
This is not how most people respond to the media.  Some call this the best three minutes on Television. The speech is very similar to other speeches written by Aron Sorkin. (I saw a fantastic interview of him where they showed clips that had a similar stirring speech.  Here is a clip from that interview.




Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Wonderful Mash of Inspirational Speeches from Movies.

This is a wonderful mash of inspirational speeches from movies. It is awesome



Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.