No, unless the backend SP sends some kind of periodic status report, which would only slow down the process some more.

You could show an animated gif or some other image to convey the impression of work being done. If you have an idea of how much time it normally takes, you could give the user a timer or an idea of when it might finish, or if it is appropiate for your app, you could run it asynchronously and have your program continue and inform the user later when the process was finally done.