Psychological Tactic to Lengthen Queues in Markets

Think IKEA checkout lines and airport counter lines. In one, people When choosing which safe to wait in In the other case, the person whose turn it is, heads to the counter. This difference changes a lot about our perspective.

Let’s see as the tail types differ. How our psychology and perspective differ in parallel And based on this, why are the checkout lines being extended?

Waiting in line causes stress and anxiety.

There are generally two types of queue models in grocery stores. The first is the most common today. “multiple queue” model. The queues at any multi-checkout grocery store say exactly what we’re talking about.

In this model, there is more than one cashier and customers are lined up in different queues. always too We feel like we’ve chosen the most awaited queue And that’s where anxiety comes into play.

Waiting without knowing exactly how long to wait the uncertainty it creates, It causes us to feel stressed and anxious. “I wonder if I should have gone into safe number 3?”, “I definitely chose the queue where I would wait the longest.”, “People in the other queue bought less stuff, I could have waited less if I had gotten in that queue.” Our heads are filled with thoughts like these.

Isn’t it very strange? We hate and worry so much about waiting that we even after a few minutes of waiting We think of a thousand different things. We experience decision-making anxiety. There is even a scientific concept called “election anxiety”.

We may feel less stressed when there is only one queue.

We are especially familiar with airports, “serpentine line” You can understand the so-called winding queues from the image above. We get into a single line and the next person goes to the vacated trading desk or cash register.

In this way, waiting times cease to be a competition and our thoughts about which queue we should enter would be more advantageous are eliminated. The queues are getting longer at Disney World The same sequence method is used. However, it is not possible to use this queuing model because there is generally not enough space in markets such as BİM, ŞOK and Migros.

The winding queues aren’t entirely innocent either. It reduces anxiety for waiters but increases it for cashiers.

Cashiers may feel pressured because of their responsibility to customers and waiting times in winding queues. as much as possible They try to work fast. Of course, there are those who do not like this and do not even care about the people waiting and try to talk to their friends at the next counter.

What we want to say is that both types of tails have some advantages and disadvantages. Now slightly with scientific data Let’s talk and analyze the queues.

In an experiment conducted on two types of tails, surprising results were obtained.

Discovery Channel “Mythbusters” program, an experiment was conducted on two different types of tails. The average wait time in multiple queues is 5 minutes 39 seconds, compared to 5 minutes and 39 seconds in roundabout queues. to 6 minutes 56 seconds it was rising! But this is not the real interesting part.

Those waiting in a single line compared to multiple lines said they had a better waiting experience. Customers rated multi-line queue as 3.48 out of 5, while single-line queue was rated as 3.48 out of 5. 3.80 points He had given it.

As a result, although it may have longer waiting times, it can be difficult to avoid convoluted and single lines. is the best in terms of customer satisfaction and perspective appeared. Nowadays, businesses that have the opportunity are trying to choose this queue method.

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