Comments on: Waiting Behavior and the Retail Shopping Experience

By: Israel Robert A.

Israel Robert A. — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 23:10:19 +0000

“…..Pete, I read once that the best way to keep customers happy in a queue is to put up a mirror, then they become too busy looking at themselves to notice the passing of time. I work in a call centre, we obsess about queues, unfortunately mirrors won’t work for us”……..

sorry! this may not work. Anytime i go to the bank hall and meets a long line, i noticed customers rather sit comfortably watching television than time.

By: Greg Watts

Greg Watts — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:14:04 +0000

The maths of single vs multi line have been proven many times. I believe (and am happy to be proven wrong) that the original work was done in banks. The key figure is the Average wait time per customer. With a single line the distribution of wait times is much narrower and is only affected by the number of people within the line, leaving it and joining it. With multiple lines you have to add in the’tolerance’ wait time before swapping and the fact that in a line with a blocker, everyone in that line suffers the additional time, not so with a single line as unless you get a blocker at each till/service point, the line will continue to move (statistically unlikely). With multi lines the issue is that people tend to wait too long before swapping lines because they have invested time and there is the ‘fear’ that if I swap, the line will start to move quicker because the blocker finishes. The same has been shown on motorway queue’s occupying all lanes. It is better to stay in one lane because the very act of swapping speeds up the line you leave and slows the line you join (average times). It is all very counter-intuitive.
Lecture over! : ) Reading it back it I really do think I need to get out more.

By: J

Thu, 31 May 2012 02:18:45 +0000

What is there are 3 back to back line stopper customers. In that case you would have 3 stations blocked. One Line vs Multi-line logic doesn’t seem to work for me.

By: James Lawther

James Lawther — Sat, 19 May 2012 12:02:55 +0000

Pete, I read once that the best way to keep customers happy in a queue is to put up a mirror, then they become too busy looking at themselves to notice the passing of time.

I work in a call centre, we obsess about queues, unfortunately mirrors won’t work for us.

James

By: Brian Beebe

Brian Beebe — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:57:27 +0000

I don’t know if I’m buying the one line vs. multiple lines comparison. The image is not an apples to apples comparison.

1) Different amounts of customers
2) Different amounts of cashiers

Try this image – which line would you rather be standing in?
http://tinyurl.com/73fwh39

* 5 Cashiers
* 30 Customers
* 23 regular customers
* 7 Stoppers
* 4 Customers and 1 Stopper SWIP for both
* 15 Customers served before all aisles stopped (Parrallel/Multiple Lines)
* 13 Customers served before all aisles stopped (Serial/Single Line Flow)
* Customer Perception – Single Line is 5 times as long (but moving)
* If customers are viewed as WIP, there is more transportation/travel from a one piece flow perspective… (Parrallel/Multiple Lines) 6 Body Positions to completion (Serial/Single Line Flow) 26 Body Positions to completion

Please notify me if the photo link does not work.

By: Michael Sherwood

Michael Sherwood — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:17:11 +0000

I was actually going to a store this weekend and saw a full parking lot. At that point I chose to go to another store because I imagined the lines that the store would have. The other store I went to had an emptier parking lot and I didn’t wait in a line at all. Even though I have to drive another 2 miles to get to the store I am planning on going there for my next grocery trip.