The psychology of queuing

Long queues scare away customers. Anyone who has ever shopped knows this. How likely are you to wait in a line that stretches out the door? Businesses have to be concerned over this fact. After all, if customers refuse to wait in line or leave your store with a sour taste in their mouth because the line was too long, it will affect the business’ bottom line (Kirill, 2017).

When customers wait for a grudgingly long time they may check out but they’ll never return to your store. First impressions matter: one bad experience can scare away a customer forever. After all, research has shown that people are wired to remember negative experiences over positive ones. It might even be an evolutionary advantage, but it’s certainly not an advantage for business.

This means that bad queues stick to our minds like glue and ultimately inform the perceived waiting time customer satisfaction. As Dr. Queue himself, MIT researcher Richard Larson, says: “Often the psychology of queuing is more important than the statistics of the wait itself.” (Kirill,2017)

Reference  

Kirill. (2017, December 22). Long Waiting Times Cost You Sales. Retrieved from https://www.qminder.com/long-waiting-times-sales/.