Words of experience. Time: respecting it to enhance the brand experience

Time is one of the most precious resources we have. In customer experience, respecting it means helping people navigate, choose, and take action without expending unnecessary energy

When a person devotes time to a company, product, or service, they are already making an investment. This might be the time required to compare two products, fill out a form, look up information, or receive assistance—or the harder-to-measure time spent determining whether a choice is truly the right one.

Therefore, discussing time in the context of customer experience is not just about speed: a fast experience is not automatically a good one, just as an experience that takes time is not necessarily negative.

The difference lies in how that time is experienced: if it helps the customer choose, understand, and feel valued, it can be time well spent. If, however, it forces them to backtrack, search for something they cannot find, or repeat information they have already provided, it becomes wasted time.

Time: a central dimension of the customer experience

Imagine someone spending two hours choosing a significant product—such as a home appliance, an insurance policy, or a trip. They might do this in a store, on an e-commerce site, or by moving between different channels.

Those two hours represent attention, energy, and expectations, but also time carved out from work, family, and personal commitments. Designing an experience means dealing with a resource that is both limited and precious to people.

It is from this perspective that we can view the value of time in the user experience: a well-designed experience helps people navigate alternatives, identify what is relevant, and find reliable answers, without demanding more of their time and energy than necessary.

The point here is not merely to save time, but to go a step further: to treat it as a dimension of the experience that must be respected.

A fast experience or a useful one?

Some experiences call for speed—such as blocking a card, changing a booking, or resolving an issue. In these cases, every unnecessary step is a burden.

At other times, however, you need time to understand, compare, and choose. A quality experience recognizes this distinction: it simplifies when necessary but allows room for deeper exploration when that helps with decision-making.

The goal, then, isn’t simply to shave off seconds or clicks, but to ensure the time spent serves the user’s objective.

Wasted time degrades the customer experience

Not all points of friction are obvious: sometimes the problem lies in filters that don’t actually help with decision-making, descriptions that fail to answer key questions, inconsistent information across the website, store, and customer support, overly long forms, or unexplained wait times.

These are minor points of friction that, when compounded, create a distinct impression: “This experience is a waste of my time.”

Signs that an experience is wasting people’s time

• key information is hard to find
• the user has to repeat information already provided
• the website, store, and support team give conflicting answers
• it is unclear what happens next after taking an action
• the process forces the user to take unnecessary steps
• a simple issue requires multiple contacts or attempts to resolve
• a wait time is unexplained and offers no alternatives

When these situations recur, the impact goes beyond the time lost in that specific moment; they can also shape perceptions of the brand and its reliability.

This is where time intersects with another crucial aspect of the experience: trust. Trust is built on consistency between what a brand promises and what people actually experience.

If a company claims to be close to its customers but subjects them to long, confusing, or repetitive processes, the actual experience tells a different story. Respecting people’s time, therefore, becomes a tangible way to build trust.

How to design experiences that respect people’s time

Designing an experience means facilitating orientation: making it clear where users are and what they can do, distinguishing essential information from in-depth details, using understandable language, anticipating questions, and maintaining continuity across different touchpoints. It also means allowing users to pause and resume a journey without losing progress and to find support when needed.

However, not everyone approaches a service with the same speed, skills, or circumstances; respecting people’s time therefore means offering journeys that are clear yet flexible enough to adapt to diverse needs.

To determine whether an experience truly achieves this, simply measuring its duration is not enough: one must observe where people slow down, hesitate, backtrack, or require assistance, as well as which steps they navigate with ease.

Service time and time lived in user experience

Measured time does not always align with perceived time. A short wait can feel much longer if we don’t know what is happening, whereas a longer wait might be acceptable if we know how long it will last and what comes next. Ultimately, what makes the difference is not just the duration, but how that time is experienced.

Understanding this requires both data and listening. We can track completion times, drop-off rates, errors, and requests for assistance, but such data alone cannot tell us what people actually experienced along the way.

Research allows us to bridge these two perspectives: understanding not only how much time an experience takes, but also why certain moments are perceived as simple, arduous, or unnecessarily long.

This is the essence of With—TSW’s Sixth W: observing and listening to people in order to design better experiences together with them.

Time as a form of care

Caring for the experience also means respecting the time people dedicate to us. It means not complicating what can be simple and not burdening them with the weight of poorly coordinated processes.

Every interaction occupies a moment in someone’s life; designing better experiences means ensuring that moment is useful, clear, and valuable to the person experiencing it.

In this sense, respecting time is a form of care.