The Importance Of Speed In Customer Experience Management

Responsiveness is one of the most powerful superpowers you can have in work and in life. Was on a run this morning with some engineering leaders who told me they chose their vendor simply because that team **replied first** Speed absolutely wins. And responsiveness is the form of speed people can actually feel on the other side, whether they are a customer, a founder, a colleague, or a friend. For a startup, this shows up as sales velocity. A buyer who emails three vendors with products that look very similar – one responds within the hour, schedules a demo that same day, and is ready to help them implement that afternoon. They may not have the best product or the lowest price, but they are the fastest, and that usually means they win. The same principle applies to customer success. If your customers know they can send a message and get a reply right away, whether by Slack, email, or phone, they will feel supported, and that speed builds trust, and that trust compounds over time. It is no different for investors, employees, or even friends. The investors who respond quickly are the ones who get into the most competitive deals. The employees who respond quickly are the ones who get more responsibility, more ownership, and eventually more promotions. The friends who respond quickly are the ones you turn to first when something important happens. Speed signals seriousness. It shows that you care. It creates momentum. And once people know you are fast, they will bring you more opportunities, more trust, and more responsibility. Responsiveness, the form of speed that others directly experience, often makes the biggest difference in who actually wins.

"Mother Mary," the engineer blurted out. "396 milliseconds." The room erupted. They'd just shattered the 400-millisecond barrier—what IBM researchers called the "Doherty threshold." Here's why it mattered: For 14 years, the computing world believed users needed 2 seconds of response time. The thinking? People needed time to process their next move. Dead wrong. In 1982, IBM discovered that when systems respond in under 400 milliseconds, something magical happens. Users stay glued. Their productivity soars. They enter a flow state that lasts for hours. Cross that threshold? Their minds wander. The spell breaks. The implications were staggering: ✓ Google found that a 500ms delay = 20% drop in searches ✓ Shopzilla increased revenue 12% by speeding up from 7 to 2 seconds ✓ Amazon calculated every 100ms of latency costs them 1% in sales But here's what's wild: This was discovered before the internet, before mobile, before AI, before we carried supercomputers in our pockets. Today? Users expect instant. Touch latency on tablets. Page loads on mobile. Every interaction is judged in milliseconds. The lesson: Speed isn't a luxury. It's the price of admission. Your users' attention is the scarcest resource in the world. Every millisecond you waste is a millisecond they might spend elsewhere. What's your product's response time?

“Speed doesn’t just impress buyers. It changes how they think.” I was supporting a deal with a government agency in India. After months of slow movement, one of our AEs decided to change pace. Instead of waiting days to reply to follow-up questions, she started responding within 30 minutes. Instead of booking calls a week out, she offered same-day options. Instead of letting the buyer’s process set the tempo, she respectfully started dictating rhythm. Something shifted. The buyer’s team — previously unhurried — began mirroring that pace. Questions came faster. Decisions followed more quickly. Procurement even escalated approvals internally to stay in sync. ✅ What happened? We triggered urgency. Not by pressuring the buyer — but by resetting their internal tempo. Speed changed the emotional texture of the deal from “eventual project” to “active initiative.” ✅ What we did systematically: – Rebuilt our MAP (mutual action plan) with tighter next steps and weekly internal follow-ups – Used short email recaps post-meeting to clarify alignment – Trained reps to end every call with a same-day or next-day scheduling option – Flagged every unanswered email internally within 12 hours for follow-up 🎯 Behavioral psychology at work: – Temporal Contagion: People mirror perceived urgency – Momentum Bias: Once in motion, inertia helps keep deals alive – Availability Heuristic: Fast responses feel more valuable, more reliable, and more urgent Speed isn’t just about “being helpful.” It influences how buyers prioritize you in their mental stack of decisions. And in complex B2B deals, staying top-of-mind is half the battle. 📌 If you want faster deals, act like it’s already urgent — and watch your buyer catch up. 📥 Follow me for more insights. Repost if this resonated.

One of the key principles in my new work on the power of responsiveness in business is the idea of "replying without answers." What usually happens now is that when someone asks a question that we can't immediately answer, we go look it up. We procure the answer by checking with accounting. Or asking Google. Or investigating with a sales rep. Or whatever. That can take hours. Or days. And then, once we have the answer, we respond to the query. STOP DOING THIS. Because the whole time you're "finding out" the person who asked is FREAKING OUT. They are wondering if you got the question. If you are ghosting them. If their email went to spam. It's a tea kettle of anxiety and doubt. The better way is to immediately reply with "Great question! So much so, I have to find out the answer. I'm going to do that, and then I'll be back in touch." This way, the person knows you are working on it, and the anxiety kettle goes off the burner. The result is that the perception of your responsiveness goes way up, AND you actually buy yourself MORE time to gather the actual information. Because my research finds that psychologically, speed of RESPONSE is more vital than speed of RESOLUTION. I've been using this "reply without answers" technique for 2.5 years, and it's made a BIG difference across my whole life. What do you think? #thetimetowin #keynotespeaker #speakerlife

Responsiveness - The most important business metric no one talks about. How often do you have to check in on the status of work from one of your vendors? Does this sound familiar: - You sent your tax accountant info a month ago and don't know the status of your tax filing - You have a lawyer helping you on something, but have no idea how it's going. - You send an email asking for an update, but don't get a response for 5-7 days? This happens all the time!!! Why? It's terrible. Businesses that say they are client focused, rarely give you a great client experience. If you run a company, you have to understand that what you do (the output of work) is only a small portion of the value a client will derive from your engagement. The client experience is just as, if not more valuable. A key component to client experience is responsiveness. Companies should be able to clearly answer: - What are your responsiveness metrics? - Do you have SLAs around response times? - How do you track responsiveness? - What are you doing to improve your company's responsiveness? At Decimal, we've built responsiveness into our DNA from day one. We've operationalized it in a way that allows us to track and improve it too. Our SLAs are trained, tracked and improved. We strive to respond quickly to show we care. It's part of our client experience. Sometimes, it's simply to say: "we're looking into this and will get you an update asap." Even that response shows you've received the email, you care, and you cared enough to give the client piece of mind. Responsiveness - The most important business metric no one talks about. Because of that, doing it well is a big differentiator. What are you doing to show your clients/customers you care?

Time kills all deals. But let’s be honest, it doesn’t just kill deals. It erodes trust, stalls momentum, and opens the door for churn. Speed matters. In sales, it’s the difference between closing and losing. In escalations, it’s the difference between recovery and regret. In customer success, it’s the difference between engagement and silence. Your customers won’t always say it, but they feel it. When you move fast, they feel prioritized. When you’re slow, they feel forgotten. You don’t need to have all the answers right away. But you do need to respond with urgency. Set expectations. Keep the momentum. Show them they matter. In a world where your competitors are just a click away, speed is your advantage. Be fast. Be responsive. Be intentional. Your customers will notice.