Tough to stay jolly in line
Even in the gloom of a recession, tinged by the threat of H1N1 flu, throngs of people will soon be out there holiday shopping. And sometimes, it may seem like they're all in line ahead of you.
But as long as the line you're standing in moves efficiently, and especially if there are treats to nibble or mirrors to preen in, you might not feel so bad about the time you spend waiting, say those who have studied line psychology.
"Perceived waiting time is almost more important than reality," said Gail Tom, a marketing professor at California State University, Sacramento.
Tom, who has studied lines in grocery stores, said delayed customers forgive events such as a malfunctioning register or a slow-moving customer, but they don't overlook clerks who are too chatty or indifferently slow.
Tom and other "queueing theory" scientists have scrutinized people waiting in line to buy groceries, deposit money in bank accounts and board elevators. Even police responses to 911 calls have been analyzed.
Generally, researchers conclude that many factors – even body temperature – can influence a person's perception of how long or short their time in line is, which might have nothing to do with actual time.
Diversions, such as free food samples around the checkout line or a pianist in the lobby, can lower perceived wait times and complaints, research shows.
So can appealing to vanity, it seems.
In the post-World War II era, complaints about long waits and jam-packed elevators in high-rise offices and apartments in New York City puzzled engineers, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.
Adding more elevator shafts was impractical. But ceiling-to-floor mirrors placed by elevator doors provided a distraction for people mesmerized by their own reflections. Complaints dropped faster than an express elevator.
Providing wait times in advance – such as airline pilots giving estimated departure times – also seems to reduce customer irritation.
Some crowd-pleasing techniques that have emerged include the single line feeding into all registers, dedicated lines for returns or other prolonged transactions and express lines, said Alexandra Sotereanos Sneed of McMillan/Doolittle, a Chicago-based retail consultant.
In New York City, shoppers used to haphazardly snake down aisles of Whole Foods stores, pressing toward 35 to 40 open cash registers during rush hours. Other shoppers couldn't jostle through the lines to reach shelves. You could almost watch a half-hour sitcom before you reached a register.
Something had to give.
Several years ago, at its Columbia Circle and Union Square stores in Manhattan, the gourmet grocer switched to a single line, using video monitors with flashing colors to signal an open register.
"It was warmly received by customers," said Michael Sinatra, a spokesman for the grocer's northeast region.
The single-line method, common at other types of retailers, was almost revolutionary for a grocery store.
"Even more than attracting new customers, we're not losing customers because they have to wait," Sinatra said.
Borders has long used the single checkout line, said Mary Davis, a spokeswoman for the Michigan-based book seller. "It's more equitable and faster," she said.
Briefly, the company experimented at a few stores in 2008 with lines at every register.
Checkout times slowed. Customers complained and the experiment quickly folded.
Simply eliminating delays doesn't guarantee satisfied customers, says Richard Larson, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose study of lines has earned him the nickname Dr. Queue.
A system that allows someone to skip to a newly opened register line ahead of others who have waited longer results in a kind of infuriating "social injustice" that turns off customers, his research found.
Sacramento State professor Tom found that the same retailers could serve two distinct customers: those who want to get in and out and those who enjoy interacting with clerks.
"It's not a blanket caveat to move people out as fast as possible," she said.
For those who value a speedy exit, however, the technology is stepping up, Sneed said. More stores are installing self-serve checkouts. At some retailers, such as Apple, employees on the floor carry a hand-held device to accept payment from customers after waiting on them.
Still, despite all these attempts to improve checkout efficiency, there's one thing retailers can't seem to change.
"Here's the problem: Everybody shops at the same time," Sneed said.
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