7 Out of 10 Adults Are Willing to Pay Up to 40% More for Faster Service

By Evanna Kearins

They say time is money. In today’s global consumer “Me Culture," it's literally true. In fact, seven out of 10 adults in the U.S., U.K., Germany and France responding to a survey we conducted reported that they're willing to spend more to wait less. Speed of service is paramount as consumers navigate increasingly busy lives and distractions. While retailers are feeling the hard truth of this pressure, opportunity remains to turn this insight into loyalty. To deliver on this, retailers are expected to provide real-time digital personalization and recommendations. The faster and more relevant the personalization is, the better brands can compete for customers.

To better understand the “Me Culture” driving this expectation, DataStax commissioned research, via Harris Poll, to ask more than 5,000 international adults about their expectations for various everyday experiences, from shopping to waiting for a car service to online dating. The results were eye opening and have implications for retailers. Here's a look at some of the findings.

Faster Service is Worth [a Lot] More Money

Nearly seven in 10 (69 percent) international adults are willing to spend extra to reduce wait time.
The average extra amount adults are willing to pay to wait less is 21 percent.
U.S. adults are willing to pay 29 percent more than the asking price, more than consumers in the U.K. (23 percent), France (18 percent), and Germany (15 percent).
U.S. millennials (age 18-34) will pay 40 percent more.

Real-Time Personalization is Worth More Than Personal Information

More than half (53 percent) of U.S. adults say they're more willing to share their personal data with a business that personalizes services/products based on that data. Adults in the U.K., Germany and France are a bit more hesitant. In the U.K., for example, only 43 percent of residents say they're willing to share their personal data with a business that personalizes services/products based on that data, followed by Germany (39 percent) and France (36 percent.)

Digital Recommendations Are Worth More Than Those From Significant Others

On average, 56 percent of international adults prefer to consult digital resources than their significant others for recommendations. Those percentages break down as follows:

64 percent of U.S. consumers
61 percent of U.K. consumers
55 percent of French consumers
52 percent of German consumers.

So What Does This Mean for Retailers?

To compete, retailers must be able to reach and convert customers in fast, seamless interactions. While brands understand that personalization and real-time action are important, they must evolve from a “peak and valley” sales mentality to standardize high levels of fast, personalized customer experience year-round.

Data shows us that consumers are willing to invest more to get what they want, which highlights a prime revenue-generating opportunity for retailers. Furthermore, it gives retailers the cushion to add the technology and resources they need to enable this real-time personalization and speedy service.

What Does This Look Like?

Adopting technology and strategies to meet the demands of real-time personalization and ensure you're reaching your customers where and how they want may include migrating services and database management to the cloud. Macy’s, for example, turned to the cloud when it found that a rapid e-commerce expansion was more than its current technology could handle. Sharing in-the-moment, personalized recommendations required Macy's to be able to scale and be agile without its customers having any downtime. Shifting its tech strategy to prioritize this drove a 50 percent growth in sales from Macy's app in six months.

Retailers must have a digital strategy and the technology to support that strategy in order to make real-time personalization possible for customers. Consumers are happy to pay for it. They just won’t wait.

Evanna Kearins is the vice president of global field marketing at DataStax.