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Thanks, that was interesting and thoughtful, and I agree in general. However, in this case, I don't think it would be so bad to say something like, "Your order

by endtime 17y ago

Thanks, that was interesting and thoughtful, and I agree in general. However, in this case, I don't think it would be so bad to say something like, "Your order is in our system. We'll confirm that the restaurant got it correctly and email you in a couple minutes." I think the most amusing part of this whole thing is that there's no way any user actually believes there are ~100 discrete steps to the order placement process, despite the high "progress resolution" of the progress bar.

patio11 17y ago
Twenty seven seconds. Twenty seven seconds is how long it took one of my customers to a) click from my site to Paypal (T = 0), b) authenticate with Paypal, c) authorize the transaction, d) return to my site, and e) email me asking me why they hadn't gotten their Registration Key yet despite the fact that promised it would be delivered "instantly". (T = 27) They eventually got their Registration Key in 33 seconds (well, that was how long it took for them to click the link in it), and a few minutes later got it resent by me, along with an apology for taking so long. (The cause was the customer winning the race back to my website with Paypal's IPN trailing behind. It happens -- their bank took a few seconds longer to authorize it than usual, it fell into a verification queue, gremlins ate an HTTP packet, whatever.) Now, I have a certain amount of luxury in dealing with customers with high expectations as to my availability, because I clear $30 on every order and if 10% of them want to chat, well, I can deal with getting paid $300 per email I write. However, if I were running a business which processed thousands of transactions a day, and I made about a buck an order prior to paying my CS staff, I would put a significant amount of effort into making sure that you didn't become an emergency for my CS team just because you had to wait twenty-seven seconds.
- drusenko 17y ago
  My favorite are customers that email in a problem, then email in again, then email in again... Then email in that "THEY'VE EMAILED THREE TIMES AND HAVEN'T GOTTEN A RESPONSE!". That, obviously, is quite worrying. So you investigate as to why they haven't gotten a response by their fourth email, and discover that all were sent within 7 minutes of each other in the dead of night. Yes, some customers are just too much fun.
- endtime 17y ago
  To be fair, you shouldn't have promised instant delivery. And saying "a couple minutes" (or even "a few") is a lot fuzzier. The kind of person who calls in after 180 seconds because a few minutes have passed in the kind of person who is going to call you anyway because s/he's just neurotic. Edit: And single data points are not convincing. How many users have emailed you in 27 seconds (or something similar)? If it was just the one, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't break your business whatever your margins.
mseebach 17y ago
> I don't think it would be so bad to say something like, "Your order is in our system. We'll confirm that the restaurant got it correctly and email you in a couple minutes." It adds complexity but provides no value. If you call a cab, you also accept "be there in 10 minutes", even though it's not confirmed, not "Right, tell you what, I'm gonna push this button on my radio, which closes an electrical curcuit connected to a big radio, and announce your request to our fleet of cars. Now, provided that there's no interference, and that the nearest car isn't in a garage or a tunnel or something, and if the driver isn't fighting with his wife on his cellphone, or in a place getting a coffee, he'll hear the message, and radio back confirmation. He'll then drive to your address, where, bar mechanical failure of perhaps the brakes or the pressurized oil system, he will arrive in 10 minutes. Have a good day." > I think the most amusing part of this whole thing is that there's no way any user actually believes there are ~100 discrete steps to the order placement process, despite the high "progress resolution" of the progress bar. Progress is often temporal, and time has infinite resolution. There may no be 4*60 distinct steps to the process of steeping a cup of tea, but we still accept the turn of the second-hand as a measure of progress.
- endtime 17y ago
  >If you call a cab, you also accept "be there in 10 minutes", even though it's not confirmed, not "Right, tell you what, I'm gonna push this button on my radio, which closes an electrical curcuit connected to a big radio, and announce your request to our fleet of cars. Now, provided that there's no interference, and that the nearest car isn't in a garage or a tunnel or something, and if the driver isn't fighting with his wife on his cellphone, or in a place getting a coffee, he'll hear the message, and radio back confirmation. He'll then drive to your address, where, bar mechanical failure of perhaps the brakes or the pressurized oil system, he will arrive in 10 minutes. Have a good day." That's not really a fair comparison to "We'll confirm that the restaurant got your order and email you".
  - jrockway 17y ago
    How long are you supposed to wait for the email? Why not just call the restaurant and cut the email-sending middleman out of the loop? It costs the same and takes less of your time.

by endtime 17y ago

patio11 17y ago

Twenty seven seconds. Twenty seven seconds is how long it took one of my customers to a) click from my site to Paypal (T = 0), b) authenticate with Paypal, c) authorize the transaction, d) return to my site, and e) email me asking me why they hadn't gotten their Registration Key yet despite the fact that promised it would be delivered "instantly". (T = 27) They eventually got their Registration Key in 33 seconds (well, that was how long it took for them to click the link in it), and a few minutes later got it resent by me, along with an apology for taking so long. (The cause was the customer winning the race back to my website with Paypal's IPN trailing behind. It happens -- their bank took a few seconds longer to authorize it than usual, it fell into a verification queue, gremlins ate an HTTP packet, whatever.) Now, I have a certain amount of luxury in dealing with customers with high expectations as to my availability, because I clear $30 on every order and if 10% of them want to chat, well, I can deal with getting paid $300 per email I write. However, if I were running a business which processed thousands of transactions a day, and I made about a buck an order prior to paying my CS staff, I would put a significant amount of effort into making sure that you didn't become an emergency for my CS team just because you had to wait twenty-seven seconds.

drusenko 17y ago
My favorite are customers that email in a problem, then email in again, then email in again... Then email in that "THEY'VE EMAILED THREE TIMES AND HAVEN'T GOTTEN A RESPONSE!". That, obviously, is quite worrying. So you investigate as to why they haven't gotten a response by their fourth email, and discover that all were sent within 7 minutes of each other in the dead of night. Yes, some customers are just too much fun.
endtime 17y ago
To be fair, you shouldn't have promised instant delivery. And saying "a couple minutes" (or even "a few") is a lot fuzzier. The kind of person who calls in after 180 seconds because a few minutes have passed in the kind of person who is going to call you anyway because s/he's just neurotic. Edit: And single data points are not convincing. How many users have emailed you in 27 seconds (or something similar)? If it was just the one, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't break your business whatever your margins.

mseebach 17y ago

> I don't think it would be so bad to say something like, "Your order is in our system. We'll confirm that the restaurant got it correctly and email you in a couple minutes." It adds complexity but provides no value. If you call a cab, you also accept "be there in 10 minutes", even though it's not confirmed, not "Right, tell you what, I'm gonna push this button on my radio, which closes an electrical curcuit connected to a big radio, and announce your request to our fleet of cars. Now, provided that there's no interference, and that the nearest car isn't in a garage or a tunnel or something, and if the driver isn't fighting with his wife on his cellphone, or in a place getting a coffee, he'll hear the message, and radio back confirmation. He'll then drive to your address, where, bar mechanical failure of perhaps the brakes or the pressurized oil system, he will arrive in 10 minutes. Have a good day." > I think the most amusing part of this whole thing is that there's no way any user actually believes there are ~100 discrete steps to the order placement process, despite the high "progress resolution" of the progress bar. Progress is often temporal, and time has infinite resolution. There may no be 4*60 distinct steps to the process of steeping a cup of tea, but we still accept the turn of the second-hand as a measure of progress.

endtime 17y ago
>If you call a cab, you also accept "be there in 10 minutes", even though it's not confirmed, not "Right, tell you what, I'm gonna push this button on my radio, which closes an electrical curcuit connected to a big radio, and announce your request to our fleet of cars. Now, provided that there's no interference, and that the nearest car isn't in a garage or a tunnel or something, and if the driver isn't fighting with his wife on his cellphone, or in a place getting a coffee, he'll hear the message, and radio back confirmation. He'll then drive to your address, where, bar mechanical failure of perhaps the brakes or the pressurized oil system, he will arrive in 10 minutes. Have a good day." That's not really a fair comparison to "We'll confirm that the restaurant got your order and email you".
- jrockway 17y ago
  How long are you supposed to wait for the email? Why not just call the restaurant and cut the email-sending middleman out of the loop? It costs the same and takes less of your time.