Field notes
Queue Wait Definitions That Survive Audit
Agreeing when a customer’s wait clock starts and stops so branch reports stay comparable across regions.
Audit teams in Thai banks often find that Region A starts the wait clock at ticket print while Region B starts it when the customer reaches the rope line. Both feel reasonable on the floor; neither survives a network comparison.
A durable definition names three events: ticket issue, first call, and transaction complete. Average wait uses ticket-to-first-call. Service time uses first-call-to-complete. Abandoned tickets need their own exclusion rule so they do not quietly inflate averages.
Write the definition in the same language the queue vendor uses in its export columns. If the export only has ticket time and complete time, do not invent a first-call metric until the vendor feed is extended.
Once locked, publish the definition on the dashboard itself in a one-line caption. Managers stop arguing about method and start discussing the two branches that breached the agreed threshold three weeks running.