Russia Has Longest and Slowest Queues, Study Says

Russian queues have been recognized as the longest and slowest in Europe, A study by Mystery Shopping Providers Association said.

Photo: Russia Has Longest and Slowest Queues, Study Says

Mystery shoppers in 18 countries of Europe visited grocery stores, banks, post offices and drug stores to analyze and compare queues there. The slowest queues were found in Russia. Russian customers have to spend the average of 27 minutes in a queue waiting to be serviced.

Italy comes second with 14 minutes. The Swedish queues are the fastest. Customers in Sweden do not lose much of their time in waiting lines: they have to waste only two minutes in them. British customers spend the average of three minutes in lines.

The longest line was found not in the Russian Federation, but in Greece: mystery shoppers counted 72 people in the line to a bank. The slowest queue was found in Italy: it took post office employees two hours to service 34 clients.

Waiting lines are the slowest in banks, post offices and shopping centers: the average time of waiting is 19 minutes.

The researchers concluded that the quality of service has considerably reduced in the world as compared to 2008. The average quantity of people in queues has grown from 3.4 to 4.4. The average time of waiting has doubled too – from 5 to 10 minutes. The number of dissatisfied customers has increased to 32 percent, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper wrote.