Through your customers' eyes · Insight 6 of 8
What a long wait really costs you
Waiting was the complaint 200 Canadian glasses buyers named most. Under a week, 8 in 10 were fine with it. After two weeks, fewer than 2 in 10 were.
We asked 200 Canadians how they buy glasses. One question was: what was the most frustrating part?
The top answer was the wait.
- 44 of the 182 people who answered (24%) wrote about waiting for their glasses.
- Only 15 (8%) wrote about price.
One person said the wait gave them headaches, because they couldn’t see well until the new pair came. That’s worth remembering. While your customer waits, they’re often squinting through an old prescription.
So how long is too long? The survey answers that too.
One week is the sweet spot
We asked how long the glasses took, and how the wait felt.
- 79%
A week or less
68 people
- 53%
1 to 2 weeks
89 people
- 16%
2 to 4 weeks
19 people
- Within a week: 79% said the wait was fine.
- In week two: that drops to 53%.
- After two weeks: it’s down to 16%.
So for the first seven days, most customers don’t mind. In week two, it’s a coin toss. After that, almost everyone is annoyed.
What the wait does to your five stars
The wait doesn’t only annoy people while it lasts. It changes how they rate the whole visit afterwards: the staff, the frames, the price, everything. We asked everyone how satisfied they were with the experience overall. When we sort the answers by how long the glasses took, the pattern is clear. Every extra week means fewer customers say “very satisfied.”
- 38%
A week or less
68 people
- 31%
1 to 2 weeks
89 people
- 21%
2 to 4 weeks
19 people
- Within a week: 38% were very satisfied.
- In week two: that drops to 31%.
- After two weeks: it’s down to 21%.
It’s even clearer when you look at how the wait felt:
- Wait felt fine: 44% were very satisfied.
- Wait felt too long: only 15% were.
Same glasses. The wait is what changed.
Here’s the part that surprised us. A long wait did not change how many people said they’d come back. About 3 in 10 said “definitely” either way (33% when the wait felt fine, 30% when it felt too long). So a slow order won’t lose you the customer today.
What it costs you is your five stars. And in Insight 1, we saw why those matter:
- Very satisfied customers: 53% will definitely come back.
- Just satisfied customers: 21% will.
A long wait moves people from the first group into the second.
Not knowing makes it worse
Some complaints weren’t about how long the wait was. They were about not knowing.
- “Not knowing how long it would take.”
- “The chain store forgot to notify me when my glasses were ready.”
That second one hurts. The glasses were ready. Nobody said so. The wait got longer for no reason.
Compare that with this customer, who waited about as long:
“The length of time it took to receive my glasses was somewhat frustrating but I understood that this was a standard time period.”
Same wait. But they knew what to expect, so they were okay with it.
You can’t always make the lab faster. You can always tell the customer what’s going on.
How to keep them happy while they wait
Give them a day, not “a week or two”
When they order, name a day: “Your glasses will be ready by Thursday.” Pick a day you know you can beat. Ready early feels like a gift. Ready late feels like a broken promise.
Keep your customers informed
Send a text when the order goes to the lab. Send another the moment it’s ready. In Lume, the Communications Hub sends these for you when the order changes stage. Nobody has to remember, so nobody forgets.
Watch anything past a week
Seven days is the line. In Lume, you can filter your orders by status and by the date they were created. Set the created date filter to anything older than a week, and you have the list of customers who are starting to wonder. Give them a quick update before they have to ask.
How we know
We surveyed 203 Canadians who wear glasses or contacts, through Prolific, from July 21 to 23, 2026.
- 181 people answered the questions about the wait. (They were added after the first small batch.)
- 182 people wrote an answer to “what was most frustrating.”
- The charts leave out 5 people who waited over a month or couldn’t remember.
With groups this size, treat a gap under about 10 points as noise. The “2 to 4 weeks” group is small (19 people), so read it as a clear direction, not an exact number.
The people came from nine provinces and bought glasses everywhere Canadians buy them. More on who they are is in the series introduction. One honest caveat: the group leans Ontario (47%) and young (77% under 45), so it isn’t a perfect picture of Canada.